Naqiyah Haji Reinvents Herself Alongside Viraj Ghelani, Bringing Full-On Entertainment for Gen Z

Just months after wringing out audiences’ emotions with a searing portrayal of trauma and addiction, actress Naqiyah Haji is doing an about-turn - trading heartbreak for hangovers in her next big screen outing, Party Animals.

Haji earned widespread praise for her role as Dr. Nats in Heartbeats Season 2, a character built around some of the heaviest themes television can tackle: childhood abuse, mental health struggles and alcohol dependency. It was the kind of role that demands restraint, vulnerability and a steady emotional hand — and Haji delivered all three.

Now, she’s throwing caution (and inhibition) to the wind.

In Party Animals, Haji stars opposite Viraj Ghelani as Sakshi, a free-spirited party girl who answers to no one but herself. Describing the film in her own words, Haji calls it “a desi version of The Hangover and 21 Jump Street” - a hybrid of raucous misadventure and youthful chaos that promises to be a far cry from the measured intensity of her last project.

“The two characters couldn’t be more different,” Haji admits, reflecting on the leap from Dr. Nats’s quiet devastation to Sakshi’s loud, unapologetic energy. “It’s been challenging, but honestly, it’s been just as much fun.”

That contrast is precisely the point. Where Heartbeats 2 asked Haji to sit inside pain and process it on screen, Party Animals hands her the opposite brief: humour, spontaneity and the kind of madcap energy that doesn’t leave much room for second-guessing. It’s a tonal pendulum swing that actors rarely get to make back-to-back, and Haji seems to be relishing the chance to show a side of her range that Heartbeats never asked for.

The film is being positioned squarely at a Gen Z audience, banking on relatable chaos, sharp comic timing and a script packed with twists to match its characters’ restless energy. Haji says she’s hopeful that younger viewers will see themselves in Sakshi and the film’s ensemble of misfits, even as the story veers into the unexpected.

For an actress who built her recent reputation on emotional heavy-lifting, Party Animals is as much a personal experiment as it is a career move - proof that Haji isn’t interested in being boxed into one register. Whether audiences meet her as the composed, wounded Dr. Nats or the reckless, rule-breaking Sakshi, the throughline is an actor clearly intent on stretching in every direction she can.

Party Animals, starring Naqiyah Haji and Viraj Ghelani, is expected to bring its brand of unfiltered entertainment to screens soon.