Factors That Lure Musicians Into Acting

Human beings are very unpredictable creatures and their liking and disliking can change at any time. Perhaps this is where the beauty and the versatility of the man lie. And it’s the human nature to keep on evolving with time but our surroundings do play an important role in defining ourselves.

The question that arises here: Is the music industry getting too stagnant to be in or it’s just the glitz and glamour of drama world that is attracting every other musician to join acting?

Here we will try to look at some of the factors that affect the musicians to leave their childhood passion and turn into actors.

Dying music industry

In recent times, when the security situation of the country is not too suitable for live concerts and even album release, most of the musicians are frustrated and sometimes even pessimistic about the country’s situation. Music piracy is another key thing in this phenomenon as musicians here find it real hard to earn properly by selling their music because no body is ready to buy it legally. Only musicians, who have enough money of their own, can prolong their career in this field.

Fame and media presence

Lately, Pakistan’s drama industry is once again booming and they have a huge fan following all over the world. Hence people staring in them get a good chance of making it big and enhancing their face value. One would say that the recent popularity of Hum TV’s dramas have also attracted people from various other fields to become actors. The screen time which you get in a drama is definitely unmatchable these days with the viewership of drama’s increasing day by day. So they get a fair chance of enhancing their individual personality.

Another important reason is that these artists get a pretty decent amount of money even if they are not working under some big banners. The money has much to do with this entire saga. With music industry no more flourishing as it once used to, drama industry provides a good chance to get fame and make money as well.

Long term planning

Even in the best of times, a normal singer doesn’t have a professional life more than 7-8 years. Obviously exceptions can always be there. So that’s why after their peak time, they eventually have to look for some other means of income. That’s why we already see either musicians focusing upon playback careers in Bollywood or some other side business to earn their bread and butter in the long run. And drama industry being just another form of art, is easy to jump into specially seeing the current trend.

Success stories

Perhaps the most important reason of all of them is few of the success stories that have motivated others to follow them.

But the thing that should be kept in mind is that merely the tag of singer-turned-actor is not enough for you to make it big. Today there are so many good singers/musicians including Goher Mumtaz, Junaid Khan, Amanat Ali who are trying their luck in this new field but end up with pretty mediocre work.

Firstly we should have a look at the professional careers of the few of the most successful people who made it big in both of the fields. Ali Zafar in Bollywood, Fawad Khan through Humsafar, and Meesha Shafi, to some extent, who is now making big in Hollywood: all have music careers at one point or the other. But the most important point which relates all of these together is their hard work. Only few people know that they have been in industry for more than a decade toiling upward and eventually getting a breakthrough. It was not an overnight success for them.

Another thing is that all of them had a background of acting even before they started singing and that eventually helped them when they once again switched the fields from music to acting. In my opinion, it was Ali Zafar’s College Jeans, Fawad’s Jutt and Bond and Meesha’s earlier acting and modeling career which helped them at later stages in transforming them into actors.

But merely looking at these success stories, no musician can label him/herself with a good actor too. It is good to remain what you are really good at rather than switching roles and at the end of the day end up being called just an over-actor.