Finally: Hamza Haq, a Brown Doctor in a Lead Role

The moment Canadian actor Hamza Haq heard that a new show about a recently arrived Syrian refugee to Canada was in the works, he knew that he had to be a part of it.

Nine years into his acting career, the Pakistani-origin actor has also appeared in Russell Peters comedy series The Indian Detective, Priyanka Chopra’s Quantico, and the BET legal drama In Contempt. He approached Transplant creator Joseph Kay, whom he had worked with for the second season of the show This Life, and was eventually cast as the lead, Dr. Bashir “Bash” Hamed, on the medical drama, which is resonating with millions of viewers in both the United States and Canada.

“To get to do it and then to have it seen all over the world, it's been incredible to be a part of it,” Haq told The Juggernaut.

Transplant centers on Haq’s character, who has recently arrived in Canada with his young sister after escaping the ongoing violence in Syria. “The Syrian refugee crisis has obviously been all over the news and had been going on for so long, so to finally see somebody in mainstream North American television trying to tell the story, I was excited,” he said. To get into character, Haq did extensive reading about the region and had long conversations with the show’s Syrian-born and refugee consultants. “Anytime I had questions about anything, they really made themselves very available,” he recalled. “They were very generous with their stories.”