Actor finds home on ‘show he loved’

I SPY: British actor Raza Jaffrey makes his Homeland debut as Aasar Khan, a lieutenant-colonel |in the Pakistan intelligence service, in the fourth instalment of the Emmy award-winning series.

I SPY: British actor Raza Jaffrey makes his Homeland debut as Aasar Khan, a lieutenant-colonel |in the Pakistan intelligence service, in the fourth instalment of the Emmy award-winning series.

Published Oct 6, 2014

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British actor Raza Jaffrey couldn’t believe his luck when he bagged a role on one of his favourite TV shows – Homeland. Debashine Thangevelo found out how he felt about being cast in a rather divisive role as Aasar Khan, a lieutenant-colonel in the Pakistan intelligence service.

AN ACTOR could be either blessed with a plethora of opportunities, or forced to embark on the traditional path of scuffling for those breaks, sometimes for years.

Thankfully, Raza Jaffrey was spared the frustrations of the latter scenario. In fact, the theatre and TV gods have smiled down on him since graduating from The Old Vic.

After several stage productions, he caught his first big break in 2001 with the musical, Mamma Mia!, before attracting an impressed Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to cast him as the lead in AR Rahman’s Bombay Dreams.

His renown following the favourable reviews of his performance secured him a foothold in TV with Murder Investigation Team, Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, Spooks, Mistresses, Smash, Death in Paradise, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and an episodic role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit added to his CV.

On his stroke of luck in bagging the role of a new character named Aasar Khan, a lieutenant-colonel in the Pakistan intelligence service, in the fourth instalment of Homeland, he responds, with unmistakable enthusiasm: “It is a show I loved. And it’s a show that people talked about. As soon as you tell family and friends that you are a part of this, you realise what the love is for the show. And what weight it carries.”

Interestingly, it was during his trips from London to Los Angeles that his path crossed with Alex Gansa (the series producer, creator and writer).

“It was a truly international process,” he laughs. “Alex is someone you want to be in a room with. He is a man who loves this world and his projects so much. And he does it with such integrity. So when the opportunity came, I jumped (at it). I joined with a sense of pride to be part of something I love actually.”

And he was thrust into things by shooting his first scene with Claire Danes and his second with Mandy Patinkin.

He shares: “Claire is extraordinary. I have fallen in love with her character through watching the show. She is every bit as charismatic in the flesh as she is on screen. Any actress who can turn things the way she does, it’s fun for an actor to play opposite. It means the scenes were alive and hopefully that communicates on screen. Mandy is such an icon. You know you’ve got to bring your A-game to that one as well.”

And he clearly held his own against the show’s front-runners.

Given his action-packed role in Spooks, Tonight asked Jaffrey about his stunts this time around.

The 30-something actor says: “I haven’t had to do any stunts yet. I’m sure I will.”

As for slipping into the skin of Aasar Khan, he reveals: “I tried to research (in other words, Googling) where I could. Luckily, with my background doing Spooks, I met some interesting people who could talk a little bit about what it is like to have a life inside the intelligence services.”

Talking roles and whether it possibly hits close to home, Jaffrey shares: “My father is from India. His family moved to Pakistan after the Partition. Also, I’m a great believer, more and more as my career progresses, that, while we should protect roles in certain ways with certain ethnicities, I think it is also so important that people should play across roles. Other-wise, you get so specific that only someone from London can play a Londoner, or only someone from Scotland can play a Scottish person. As long as the role is played with integrity, no one can complain that Daniel Day Lewis played Lincoln.”

Jaffrey described his character as multi-layered.

“Although Aasar is charming, which, from the little understanding that I have, is how a lot of those guys in intelligence are, as they get what they want from talking to a lot of people, he also has to make some tough decisions.”

How that inner-conflict plays out in the new battlefield is one of the drawcards of this season.

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