PAKISTANI ACTOR HUMAYUN SAEED ON MAKING HIS NETFLIX DEBUT ON THE CROWN: ‘IT WAS OVERWHELMING TO SAY THE LEAST’

THE SEASONED STAR SPEAKS TO US ABOUT WHAT HE LEARNED ON THE PRODUCTION SIDE AND PLAYING DR. HASNAT KHAN IN THE LATEST SEASON OF THE HISTORICAL DRAMA

- Anurag Tagat

If you hadn’t heard of Humayun Saeed before his role as Dr. Hasnat Khan – the Brit-Pakistani who became Princess Diana’s love interest in the midNineties – in The Crown, you would do well to dive right into his work. The seasoned Pakistani actor brings a nuanced warmth and appropriate amount of drama to the historical show about the British Royal family.

It builds upon three decades of rising up in the Pakistani movie and T.V. world, including Nineties dramas such as Mehndi, Ye Jahaan and more recent films like Inteha and Punjab Nahi Jaungi and Jawani Phir Nahi Ani. There’s a somber, no-nonsense side to Saeed that clearly made him a possibility to play Khan on The Crown. As it turned out, being part of the Netflix show started with Saeed actually giving his first-ever audition for a role. While he was recovering from Covid-19, no less. He says over a Zoom call, “I had a 103-degree fever and they said they needed my audition in a day. I actually hadn’t ever given an audition like this before, so I wasn’t aware of the processes.”

After a couple of rounds, his agent gave him the good news – Saeed was going to the U.K. to be part of filming season 5 of The Crown with actors such as Jonathan Pryce (Prince Philip), Elizabeth Debicki (Princess Diana), Dominic West (Prince Charles). With the series written by Peter Morgan (The Last King of Scotland, Frost/ Nixon and Bohemian Rhapsody) and Saeed’s appearances directed by Erik Richter Strand.