Zara Noor Abbas on feeling confident in her body and discovering her action-hero side.

An actor looks back on getting past worries about how they looked while making 'Sheroes,' and stepping into a tough new role that tested their body and mind.

Actor Zara Noor Abbas talked about making Gear Up, an action part of the upcoming movie collection Sheroes. She said she weighed 12 kg more when she shot it than she does now. 

In a chat with Arab News, she said her weight made her worried about what she wore on screen. But the director, Saqib Khan, told her to accept her body and helped her see that an action heroine doesn't have to look a certain way. 

She said, "When I filmed that movie, I was 12 kg heavier than I am now. I did feel unsure about my body. I was very careful about what I wore."

Zara remembered telling Khan about her worries, and he assured her that her body was exactly what he wanted for the role.

She added, "I told him, 'No, Saqib, you don't get it. This won't look right on my body.' He replied, 'No, you don't get it. You see your body in a bad way. From where I'm looking, I think you're perfect for the part, and I want someone who looks like this and has a build like this.'"

She said the conversation also reminded her of how important it is to show different body types when playing strong female roles in action movies. "Not everyone can be a size zero or look a certain size. No, women come in different shapes, and we're telling stories from different backgrounds," she said.

Zara stars in Gear Up, one of three parts in the movie Shereos, which tells the stories of three women from different backgrounds. She plays a police officer and does many action scenes, like fast car chases, a bomb-defusing scene, and a part where her character rides a motorbike to a police station.  

The other parts feature Kinza Hashmi in Artist and Ushna Shah in Punch.  

For Zara, this role also let her show a side of female characters she thinks is rarely seen on TV. She said, "In dramas, we can't show our physical strength. As characters, we don't show the emotional toughness, patience, and determination that women have. But I really wanted to play a role where I could look tough and cool."  

That experience seems to have made Zara want more physically challenging roles. She said, "I think I'd like to take roles in spy stories, police stories, and cool cop stories."

She is already preparing for another project, and she says she is doing hard training that includes early morning workouts.

She said, "Right now, I am also training for a new role. I wake up at 7 in the morning. From 7 to 12, I train for that role. Then I go to work on a drama set. I am also doing MMA and learning street fighting right now. I really like this new side of myself."

With Gear Up, Zara is moving into a type of movie that lets her show off her physical strength and a more action-focused part of her acting.

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Her time filming this project has also made her think about the usual idea of what a female action hero should look like—and, based on her current training, audiences may see her in that role again.