The Z List: Hariz Hamdan on his rise from underdog to TV’s roguish hero

Since his debut in the entertainment industry, he’s been playing the type of characters you love to hate — and excelling at it — all while also making a name in fitness fashion as the ambassador of ASICS. Meet The Z List 2024, rising star and real ‘champ’ at heart, Hariz Hamdan.

The acting landscape isn’t what it used to be. Speaking as a somewhat out-of-touch millennial, the inrush of new faces in the local film industry has kept me busy trying to keep up. But what I have learned is that they often traverse through the world of showbiz together. Few up-and-coming actors are able to hold their own against the more experienced, the veterans of the big screen. Hariz Hamdan is among the few.

Hariz’s acting journey began through a cookie-cutter mould: he was a finalist on Hero Remaja, the talent search-reality show that spawned icons over the years such as Norman Hakim, Fizo Omar and Fattah Amin. In his season of Hero Remaja, which aired right before the nation entered total lockdown, Hariz went up against the big leagues of his own generation including Meerqeen, Nadhir Nasar and Jabir Meftah.

While Hariz didn’t experience that instant burst into fame as his peers, he has since been quietly building his résumé with supporting roles alongside some of Malaysia’s most renowned actors, like Rosyam Nor and Nabila Huda. (His latest film Memoir Seorang Guru, which features the pair, is now showing in local cinemas.)

“I prefer to take little steps compared to skyrocketing,” Hariz affirms. “Because to me, those steps help me learn things here and there; so that when I’ve blown up, when I’m finally ‘there’, I will not make the mistakes that I did before. Whatever it is I’m learning now, it’s for me to be better in the future.”

“Plus, you’re still so young,” I add, not without a hint of envy. “You have a lot of time ahead of you.”

He laughs — a deep, resonant sound that befits his broad-shouldered build. “True, true. You’re right. That’s why I’m really grateful right now.”

At 22, Hariz has all the makings of a movie star. He’s got those classic, undeniable leading man looks (tan skin, chiseled jawlines, a sole beauty mark underneath his left eye) and a disarming smile. He oozes boyish charm and masculine energy simultaneously, which he can drop at any given moment if a scene demands it. (Hariz currently stars in the drama Bunga Salju, where he gives a convincing, mercurial performance as the antagonist.) He’s a bit reminiscent of a young Remy Ishak — who also got his start in acting during his early to mid-twenties — in that he is versatile enough to adapt to anything.

“When I started acting, I was trying to find my passion at first,” Hariz opens up. “But as I did it more and more and more, acting became my passion. It’s what I wanna do for the rest of my life. I think I’ve realised that acting is a way for me to be free, from all the struggles, all the overthinking that I have. So when I act, I’ll become the character. I’ll be in the state of mind of that character. It’s something like zen. It’s a way for me to ‘meditate’. In meditation, all of your thoughts disappear and your mind is free — just like acting, for me.”

Building the confidence brick by brick

We’re seated right outside the studio and I’m giving Hariz a hard time about what he believes his best feature is, which he refers to as “these massive guns, like, do you see these guns?” He’s wearing a bomber jacket over a polo shirt, one leg pulled up on the chair as he leans against the wall; the picture of confidence.

But this confidence, Hariz assures me, wasn’t always around. “I think the biggest challenge for me since I started is my perspective towards how I look,” he says. “When I was a kid, I used to battle with weight; with body dysmorphia. Because I used to be fat. And when I’m in this industry [now], looks matter. And some roles required me to be fat, which I have a trauma of.”

Hariz spent most of 2022 shooting for Amor Rizan’s horror flick Jemputan ke Neraka. “The film required me to be fat, because memang character I gemuk time tu,” he goes on. “Before that, I used to play the ‘crazy rich Asian’ guy, the ‘Mr. Charming’ guy. So this time, they wanted me to be different. I put on weight for myself for two months. And it was hard for me, because of my body dysmorphia. But Alhamdulillah, I managed to go through with it and faced my challenges. That’s something I’m proud of even to this day.”

Challenges are something Hariz is eager to face head-on as he continues to improve his acting. He is not averse to looking for inspiration wherever and whenever he can. He, too, has always idolised Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis, as young male actors do. But what he takes from them is less emulative craft-wise and more to do with what he envisions for himself in the big picture.

“I look up to actors who are so great in acting that people talk about it,” Hariz muses. “People don’t talk about Daniel Day-Lewis as a person, but they talk about Daniel Day-Lewis as an actor. And I aspire to be an actor that people talk about in terms of my acting. That’s the kind of actor that I want to be, too. For me, there’s a lot of inspiration out there that I can look at, but whatever it is, I have to think about myself too. Whatever inspiration I take, I’ll have to cater that to myself, so when I see Daniel Day-Lewis, I want to be Daniel Day-Lewis. When I see Leo DiCaprio, I wanna be like Leo DiCaprio. Because finding inspiration is easy, but taking steps and learning from that inspiration is challenging.”

His confidence today also stems from what he calls his “optimistic mind”. Being a Pisces, Hariz is very much in touch with his emotions, which he channels into dedicating himself in whatever he chooses to do. He reveals — to my utter surprise — that he was a big science nerd in school, with aspirations to become a physicist, until the world of the arts got its grip on him.

“My dad didn’t support me in the beginning,” he opens. “My dad is the kind of traditional Asian dad that wants their kid to be a doctor, lawyer or an engineer. But for me, I put faith in God. Wherever God puts me, there has to be a reason for that. So, for me to lawan [go against] God is not something that I’m capable of. I’m the kind of person who goes with the flow. I remember, I told my dad, ‘You don’t have to worry, I’ll prove it to you in 10 years.’ That’s exactly what I said to him. And then, he shut up. Dia senyap tau, dia tak kata apa pun [He was silent, you know, he didn’t say a word.] For like a day. I think that was what hit him so hard. I had faith in myself. That’s why right now, I work so hard, because I pegang pada apa yang I kata [hold on to what I said].”

Hariz is aware of his time limit (“I have six more years for me to prove to Dad!”), but he affirms that his dad has since shown more support in his career. “I think over time, dia dah biasa dengan I punya acting lifestyle, too,” he adds.

The nature of the ‘gimmick’

It becomes very easy to see how Hariz is able to keep up with those far more experienced than him. (In Bunga Salju, he stars alongside Amyra Rosli and Hisyam Hamid, who are both more than ten years his senior.) He’s got a good head on his shoulders. He takes his craft seriously, and takes time to understand his character to be able to perform well.

“The first step is I try to find someone who played the kind of character before,” he says, when I pry into his creative process. “I look at them, their body language, the way they speak, the way they act, how they think, what their motivation is. And after I get all of that, I try to step into the real world. I try to find someone that represents that character but in real life.”

In Bunga Salju — and a few dramas before — he embodies the antagonist role. Often up-and-coming actors start worrying about being shoehorned into an archetype, but Hariz loves it. “Antagonists have a lot more grey area than heroes,” he says. “Heroes, they have to be very specific. Like in normal Malay dramas, you have this handsome guy who’s nice to people, and is good-looking, but villains? You can shape villains more than heroes. Villains can be charming, villains can be mentally abusive, villains can be like this and that. That’s why sekarang ni, I prefer villains or antagonists instead of heroes. Because there’s so much more freedom to play with.”

For all his enthusiasm, Hariz doesn’t hesitate to reassure me that he’s “not someone like that” in real life. He tells me about a time he’s had to play a character that’s aggressive and baran [temperamental]. “I remember I used to be friends with someone who’s baran, and it was a long time since I spoke to him,” Hariz shares. “But when I wanted to play that character, I contacted him immediately. I hung out with him for, like, six months, just observing him and seeing what triggers his baran.”

This desire to understand a person wholly — to know what makes them the way they are — is probably why Hariz’s most sought-after role is a character living with a disability. “I believe it would be something very, very challenging for me as an actor,” he says. “A character that’s disabled, or is struggling with mental or physical illnesses, they have more depth in their hearts. I want to understand what they feel.”

He speaks only from a place of empathy, and this stretches beyond just acting. “I see a lot of young people right now, they have a lot of bad thoughts, or they’re nihilistic,” he goes on. “I believe that if every young generation, every Gen-Zer puts an optimistic mind within themselves, the world will be more in sync. Everything will fall into place. We reflect what we think, right?”

Learning to never lay it on too thick

Despite constantly pushing himself to rise above the challenge, Hariz doesn’t engage in method acting. He knows when to switch it on and off for the camera. “I’ve learned to not overdo it,” he says. “Some actors, they carry that character with them outside the role. But for me, I’ve tried not to do that. So whenever the director says cut, it’s the end of my character. I just let go. It has to be the end of it. You cannot be in the character throughout the whole month. I’ve tried it before, during the whole shoot. But it’s tiring. It consumes a lot of energy. And anyway, you’re supposed to be faking it. That’s basically acting. Faking it until you make it.”

But who he is at his core — that’s something Hariz doesn’t fake. I remember first meeting Hariz two years ago when we were shooting for ASICS’ #LiveUplifted campaign with the Jogger X81, and he’s just as spunky and curious as he was then. It’s just as well that he has since been named ambassador for ASICS.

“It’s been almost a year now, and it has been an amazing journey,” Hariz says proudly of his ambassadorship. “I mean, ASICS has let me travel to Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Japan and all these countries that I can’t believe I’ve gotten to go — and that I wouldn’t have been able to go because of my schedule. I suka appreciate the little things. And also, I’m a runner. When I was battling with body dysmorphia, the first action I took to fight it was running. And the cool thing is, I wore ASICS at the time.” Talk about fate! “So in that sense, ASICS has helped me through thick and thin. It’s like the universe is syncing.”

Right now, as Bunga Salju is airing on Astro Ria, Hariz is preparing for his Astro Originals series that is set to release within the next month, X-Change, in which he will once again star alongside Rosyam Nor as well as other actors like Joey Leong. As he juggles his acting and ambassadorship with ASICS, I can’t help commenting that his schedule seems to be growing tighter.

“If I have to work every single day in a month — which I’ve done — I will try to,” Hariz says, his voice laced with steely determination. “Because I’m still young, I’m only 22. There are many, many more things that I want to achieve in the future. There are many more things that I want to do. And as youngsters, we have time and we have the energy. But we don’t have the stability of money yet. So I believe what every youngster should do is sacrifice their time and their energy. Because further down the line, when I’m like 30 or 40, I won’t have as much energy as I do now. So when I ada banyak energy lah is the time yang I nak kena pulun [keep pushing] myself all the way. Because opportunities only come once. And the opportunity to have this much energy is only when you’re young.”

interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | editor-in-chief & creative direction MARTIN TEO | assisted by RONN TAN & MALLIE MARAN | stylist ISAAC CHONG | stylist assistant ZIYIN | photography EDMUND LEE (ONE3FOUR STUDIO) | videography POR JIA JUN | assisted by STANLEY LOH | makeup SHIYO JOO | hair CODY CHUA | styled in HERMÈS, PRADA, ONITSUKA TIGER, COACH

In its fourth year, The Z List 2024 continues to celebrate the inspirational and aspirational, as well as the most dynamic youths who find strength in empowering their communities through the work that they do. Working together, the Gen-Zers come in full force to make an impact strength on strength.