ForWe Are Lady Partsseason two, Nida Manzoor embraced the gray areas of Muslim identity.
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Thefirst seasonofWe Are Lady Partsconcludes with a literally pitch-perfect ending.
Its good that it didnt.
Youve said, You cant write jokes when you feel responsible.
I had the confidence to be more receptive.
In season one, I was much more trying to control it.
All those relationships were in place.
I had gone character by character, and I also listened to what the audience said about the characters.
Everything seems to be in order and in place for her.
For season two, I was like,How can we upend this?
Lets shake her to her core.
We thought about what for each of these characters would shake them to their core.
Thats true, but I just really want the audience to love her without seeing her.
Again, that was a decision in my writers room.
This idea that your identity isnt fixed; its nebulous, it moves, it shifts all the time.
We see Saira lose her home, and the band are down and out.
To achieve being the band she wants to be, she has to sell out in other ways.
Youre going to get paid to be a band, like arealband.
Theyre playing Glastonbury, theyre playing big gigs, but theyre still unable to live off being a band.
It was a real lived experience that Id absorbed from my interviews.
Im curious about how much what Saira goes through is influenced by what you have gone through.
Being Zeitgeist-y feels like its temporary, of the moment but then, no other moment?
Im about to have to give up on my dream of being a screenwriter.
And I remember considering it because I was kind of desperate.
That is something I wanted to explore, the truthfulness of how difficult it is.
Ultimately, I disagree.
I love comedy, I think it is powerful.
But its something that Ive grappled with.
Im fascinated by Sister Squire criticizing Lady Parts for not using their voice in the right way.
To be honest, Ive been Sister Squired by an artist from an older generation who wasnt just one-dimensional.
There was so much complexity to what shed been through, of not having the opportunities I had.
I felt like this is much more an interesting and real portrayal of someone whos been through it.
And so it would have been a disservice somehow to make Sister Squire just a you go, girl!
Shes not the perfect hero; shes problematic in ways.
I needed her to occupy this gray area because it just felt more interesting and more true.
Are you willing to share who that person was?No.
It definitely wasnotMeera Syal, who has been so encouraging and so lovely.
She was my comedy hero.
That show was so subversive and witty.
And just like you, every time I watched that scene in the edit, I would feel differently.
I would be like,No, shes totally wrong.
They should be speaking their truth, and then I would swing the other way.
Whenever I end up with a question mark, Im like,Cool.
He created the soundscape using a lot of metallic sounds.
I was like, This bit inThe Matrix how can we get it to sound in this world?
Moment to moment, day to day, I feel differently.
But that said, when you drill down into those questions of,What is this company Im supporting?
I think Im just stressed about it, which is why I put it in the show.
Her name isSaima Khalid Saiand she creates these spaces.
I remember going to one of her events; she runs them with her brother.
Theyre calledMakrooh;between halal and haram, theresmakrooh.
Seeing the world she built was very, very inspirational for me.
Shes had to flee Afghanistan, and I wanted to honor this artist because she is brilliant.
Shes Pakistani Jamaican and she brings all her culture to bear in her work.
And the last artist we see isRasha Nahas, who is this incredible Palestinian singer-songwriter.
Maybe the return to grassroots events and playing for each other is what success could mean.I think so.
Were being told we should seek outside validation.
I think the answer is the latter.
