DUBAI: It’s amazing what we can do outside of the boxes that others have put us in. Since the beginning of her career, Kuwaiti actress Haya Abdulsalam has always been cast as the ‘cute girl’ and she yearned to show that she was capable of more. Now, her smash-hit Netflix series “Devil’s Advocate” has the entire region talking, and with a host of follow-up ideas ready to go, Abdulsalam is poised to become the Arab world’s queen of the crime thriller.
“We intended this to be a hit, but we didn’t expect it to hit this big. People are stopping me on the street to tell me it’s the best Gulf series they’ve ever seen — that they never saw what was coming next. We’re so thrilled with this response, because that’s what we always dreamed of,” Abdulsalam tells Arab News.
She knew there was a demand for a series like this. A huge fan of true crime and thrillers herself, she long wondered why the region didn’t have its own exemplars that could match up to the shows she and her husband, actor and producer Fouad Ali, would binge watch at home after a long day on set.
Haya Abdulsalam and and Ali Kakooli in “Devil’s Advocate.” (Supplied)
“People love them, but they don’t really make them here. In our region, it’s always romantic series, or social dramas, or perhaps some historical fiction. There are rarely Arabic crime series — you can count them on one hand,” says Abdulsalam.
“My husband and I were home watching ‘The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story’ when we had the idea. We thought, ‘Let’s do a story just like this — a famous football player who’s accused of killing his wife.’ But while, in this case, people are still wondering who did it years later, we’ll give them a totally different answer they’re not expecting,” she continues.
The key role in the series was to be a hotshot female lawyer named Loulwa, who agrees to defend the young football star before falling in love with him. It was a role Abdulsalam didn’t intend for herself, and it wasn’t until a year into the process, after the script was finalized and the project was ready to go, that her husband finally stepped in, insisting she take it.
Haya Abdulsalam in “Devil’s Advocate.” (Supplied)
“We were searching for our lawyer, but my husband finally said, ‘Haya, it’s you. I can see only you. You have to do this, especially because you’re always cast as the ‘cute girl.’ No one will ever expect something different out of you, and that’s exactly why it’s going to be brilliant.’”
Playing the lead character in a series chock-full of twists, turns and revelations isn’t easy, of course. From the beginning, Abdulsalam wanted this to be a show that was impossible to predict, allowing viewers to have a completely different experience when watching it the second time. But how do you do that without giving away the game?
“It’s very hard. I remember after one take, I went to the director and said, ‘Can we do it again? Because when I say the line this way, I know people will catch on right away.’ And when they went over the footage, they realized I was right. I had to find a way to do things in between, to leave people guessing,” she says.
Abdulsalam always knew she was an artist, she just didn’t know she was an actor. Her father is a renowned painter and her mother an art director. She originally intended to follow in her father’s footsteps, even attending art school in the United States. She didn’t qualify for the fine art program, however, and fell into the dramatics department by default, urged by her family to just get a degree and figure out what to do with it later.
When she returned to Kuwait, she worked behind the scenes on local film and television productions, working as a camera assistant with no ambitions of stardom, only stepping in front of the camera to clap the film slate after the director yelled “Action!”
“The directors and producers would urge me to audition for roles, but I said ‘No, I don’t think my father will give me the OK. Not every girl in Kuwait can pursue that sort of career. It’s frowned upon in many circles,” says Abdulsalam.
“Then even my mother started insisting, and so I joined the cast of a Ramadan series in 2009, and it was an instant success. When my father saw it on television, I still hadn’t even told him I wanted to be an actor. He was so sad, and told me he didn’t want to talk to me,” Abdulsalam remembers.
For two years, Abdulsalam continued acting despite her fractured relationship with her father, landing bigger and bigger roles and pushing herself as hard as she could to improve at her craft.
“He saw the success I was having, the way I performed, the respect I received across the country. He came to me and said, ‘Now you convinced me. I’m proud of you. I thought you just wanted to be famous.’ I told him, ‘I don’t care about being famous. I only want to be an artist. You’re the one who taught me that, Baba. I just wanted to be like you,’” recounts Abdulsalam, who now counts her father as one of her biggest fans.
That same drive still fuels Abdulsalam, though now her artistic impulses extend beyond acting. Emboldened by her success as a producer on “Devil’s Advocate,” a second season of which she leaves the door open for, she is now readying numerous ideas for series that she plans to get off the ground, none of which she intends to act in — at least currently.
“I have four ideas that I’m getting ready to pitch, a couple of which were actually inspired by true crimes in the region — that happened right here in the GCC. There are so many tales that people have ignored here that deserve to be told,” says Abdulsalam.
As for acting, she is excited to continue to push herself, but is waiting for a role that speaks to her — whether in her own projects or someone else’s.
“You have to feel it, you know? I’m aware I’m getting myself into a very good place, and that this success will open a lot of doors, but if I don’t feel I can bring something to it, then it’s not for me — even if it’s good for my career on paper,” she says. “At the end of the day, I still think of this as art, and art has to speak to you.”
