Whenever a story is written, few characters are must to be included to create a purposeful theme and meaningful scenario. A positive character has to confront an antagonistic character so that the lie surrender by the truth and morality arise. A bad guy, black hat or an evil character is termed as villain and few people have courage to perform the negative role despite their own personality. Shafqat Cheema is one of them. He possesses a high esteem in Lollywood for his villain roles in Urdu and Punjabi Pakistani films.
After graduation from the Jamia Naeemia in 1974, Shafqat Cheema started his career as actor while visiting Shahnoor studio by chance.Before the offer of lead role in 1989 film Kalka, he had to struggle for about 12 years.He used to take a 25 mile tonga ride to studios in the beginning of his career.When his first film came out,he never looked back.
Bringing life to the roles of pimps, villain, criminal, gangsters or vagabonds is a tough job and Shafqat Cheema got popularity by doing such roles in the era of 1990s when Lollywood enjoyed the phase of its revival by producing the traditional hero-villain movies and attracted the film viewers back to cinema.His first hit movie was “Haathi Meray Saathi” which was directed by Shamim Ara. Afterwards, nasty roles were offered in all super hit movies where he was typecast but he did not take them granted. Every time he maintained his performance by perfect and original acting and earned fame. Some popular movies are Munda Bigra Jaye,Mr.420, Hum To Chalay Susraal and Mamla Garbar Hai where he done work with all leading heroes, heroines and legends of Lollywood.
After the decline of Lollywood, Shafqat Cheema started to work for small screen.He has acted in leading and supporting roles in various TV dramas and serials such as Who Tees Din, Landa Bazar ,Khuda aur Mohabbat and Ashk .In 2011, he performed in the blockbuster film BOL which caused the film viewers to watch movie in cinema with their families.
Shafqat is the busiest actor now a days. His demand has never faced scarcity. He is working in Punjabi, Urdu and Pushto movies. Recently,he has signed a Pushto film ,Zalmi large Pakhtoonkhaw which shows that he is really the people’s actor. His future Tv projects include Humayun Saeed’s Boom Boom, the lead in Muhammad Hamza’s Kambakht and also star in Chameli directed by Salman Jilani.
Indian Film director, Radhey Cecil likes the versatility of Shafqat Cheema Pakistani Punjabi film. Thus he offered to do a role in his film Barbara Ratko Rahim Singh for whom he has claimed that it will be very different typical commercial enterprise. He has focused on the humanitarian aspect of religion in the film and Shafqat has accepted this offer now.
List of movies, dramas and television serials in which Cheema has played a role (Filmography):
• Qurbani (1991)
• Abdullah the Great (1992)
• Outlaw (1992)
• Beta (1994)
• Sargam (1995)
• Munda Bigra Jaye (1995)
• Hawain (1996)
• Umar Mukhtar (1997)
• Bangles (1998)
• Jungle Queen (2000)
• Angaray (2000)
• Moosa Khan (2001)
• Badmash Gujjar (2001)
• Kanjhar Gosht (2002)
• Randiyon Ka Sardar (2003)
• Palang Ke Khaufnak Jhatke (2005)
• Majajan (2006)
• Jhoomar (2007)
• Godfather (2007 film) (2007)
• Palang Polo (2007)
• Zill-e-Shah (2008)
• Suhagan (2008)
• Gunahon Ki Basti (2008)
• Tu Chal, Main Aaya (2009)
• Channa Sachi Muchi (2010)
• Razia Gundon Mein (2010)
• Bol (2011)
• Bhai Log (2011)
TV Dramas
• Khuda Aur Muhabbat
• Ashk
• Who Tees Din
• Landa Bazar
