KUALA LUMPUR: From terrorist to cop, Faizal Hussein continues to deliver action in international productions.
“Age is just a number,” said actor Faizal Hussein, 51, who is still portraying varied characters in physically demanding scenes.
The artiste who has appeared in the 2017 Malaysian, Hong Kong and Russian action thriller feature film, Mrs K, added: “As long as I’m in good health and can inhabit the role convincingly, I see no problem at all.”
Fans of popular US-UK action series Strike Back will get to see him trying to outwit the show’s valiant multi-national covet special ops team, Section 20, soon.
In the 10-episode sixth season of the Cinemax original series, which premieres on Jan 26, Faizal plays an Indonesian terrorist who wants to blow up a shopping mall.
“Every two episodes will feature a new villain of sorts and I’m in the seventh and eighth episodes which is set somewhere in Indonesia. There’ll be lots of action and an intense shootout,” he said when met at the Tun Hussein Onn Memorial recently.
Faizal, who won Best Actor Award for Bunohan at the 25th Malaysian Film Festival in 2012, added that there was always two sides to a coin.
“It’s a layered role. He’s a terrorist to one party but a freedom fighter to another. There’s the perspective of colonisation and land grabbing. He’s motivated to act due to the fact that the shopping complex was built on land that was reserved for a mosque,” he said of the season 6, which was filmed entirely on location in various parts of Malaysia.
Faizal is also expected to thrill viewers in the upcoming original neo-noir series, Devoted, from Hong Kong-based online video streaming service, Viu.
In the 10-episode series, which also stars Iman Corinne Adrienne and Sharnaaz Ahmad, he plays a police inspector who is involved in the investigation of an insidious cult headed by a charismatic and manipulative leader.
“My character is in his 40s and I’m in the thick of some action scenes in the later episodes,” said Faizal of the series, which is mostly in English, and will air on March 28.
“I feel very blessed to do these foreign and internet TV productions which provide me with more edgy roles than the stereotypical fatherly roles that are usually offered to me in local productions,” he said.