Ahad Raza Mir THE NEW HOT PATAKHA IN MARKET AT#1

CALGARY'S OWN AHAD MIR IS NOW THE PRINCE OF PAKISTAN

It seems like only yesterday that Ahad Mir was singing, dancing and acting his heart out on stages around Calgary.

I first took note of him when he was playing Tony in the University of Calgary Opera Company's production of West Side Story.

Then he was spouting Shakespeare in The Tempest and Macbeth and showed his dramatic teeth in a powerful production of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo at the Pumphouse Theatre.

He won a Calgary Theatre Critics' Critter Award for his show-stopping turn in Forte Musical Guild's Naughty But Nice and then promptly announced he was going to head over to Pakistan to see if he could get work in film and television over there.

What Mir never trumpeted while creating his resume here in Calgary was that he comes from cinema royalty.

His father Asif Raza Mir is a popular Pakistani film and television actor, director and producer.

Ahad is currently being profiled by major newspapers in Pakistan as one of that country's rising young stars and they're all surprised he chose to train and get his feet wet in Canada.

Ahad explains to entertainment journalists that he didn't want to use his pedigree to break into film and TV in Pakistan.

"It's true I'm an actor's son and sometimes things are offered us on a silver platter, but for me I wanted to do it on my own.

Ahad is currently working on a feature film as well as a TV series so he figures he has proven his worth so now he can work with his father, who is preparing two films for the Mir duo to work on in the near future.

It was thrilling to read how well Ahad is doing, but not surprising because he is a genuine quadruple threat actor.

What did jump out at me though was a remark buried in the middle of one of his interviews.

As he was talking about how all the projects he has been cast in so far he has garnered for himself.

He adds "I love Pakistan and I want to be part of this country's industry. I have no plan to go back to Canada.

Yikes.

I hope that was one of those off-the-cuff remarks actors are prone to and that he means he will still come back to work in the city even if he decides to live in Pakistan.

He could always take a hiatus from filming in Pakistan to walk the boards in Calgary again.