Akademi Fantasia

Penang-born, Fatimah Abu Bakar is the judge of popular show Akademi Fantasia. She has always had her roots in the entertainment industry, being a familiar face in theatre and in the filmmaking fraternity.
“I started acting with a group of people who headed the theatre company called Kelab Teater Kuala Lumpur,” she recalls. From there she went on to film and television before joining New Straits Times, where she worked for 26 years.

But it was AF which made Fatimah a household name amongst Malaysians. She is one of the more popular personalities in the reality show, where her role is that of teacher, counsellor and motivator. Needless to say, this endearing woman is much loved by the aspiring singers who are drawn to her warm ways.

“I still remember when the folks from Astro (the producer of the reality show) were looking for people for AF. The producer knew me as a performer who had acted in theatre and television,” she explains.

“At the time a lot of people were very curious about the programme and what it was going to be like and whether audiences would react positively to it,” she continueds.

Then, she got a call from the producer on what the show was going to be all about and she was shown a demo. That is how she joined the show, and got permission from her bosses at that time, to take time off from work for around three to four months to work on the show.

“My role is basically – and this is what everyone says! – that of a motherly figure who coaches the students in drama and this has evolved to counselling them as well as being their English teacher of sorts,” Fatimah says.

Of AF’s popularity with the Malaysian audience, Fatimah puts it down to the fact that people generally get excited when seeing others compete in a competition, especially when the audience itself gets to pick who ends up becoming a star. So, the public itself is playing a big role in the show.

Asked how she evaluates talents for AF during the auditioning stage, Fatimah says that she looks for characteristics like personality, general knowledge and, to a certain extent, the confidence projected through their body language. Additional qualities like being able to think quickly on their feet are the extra something that work very well on television.

I asked her, “What does it take to be a “star” singer today?”

“You MUST have education -- at least the SPM level. You must also read a lot, listen to all kinds of music and constantly be interested in gaining knowledge and learning and from there you can be more confident. You must also have plenty of energy and the energy must have “sparks”. Be hungry to learn new things all the time. Oh, and don’t be afraid of hard work!” she says.

She clearly puts great importance on education.

Fatimah herself did her degree in mass communication majoring in journalism at ITM (now UiTM)


This explains her tenure at News Straits Times. Starting out as a reporter at the Malay Mail, she then became a sub-editor at the same paper before becoming sub-editor with the News Straits Times. She went on to become the entertainment editor and then women’s desk editor and features editor with Life&Times, before finally becoming an associate editor. After she left NST, she set up her own company, Salt Media Consultancy with some friends.




Being the sweet person that she is, she says that she treasures the fact that “I could work with wonderful people from journalism to performing arts. I am very lucky to do two things that I really enjoy doing: journalism and being in the performing arts.”

It’s a passion her children inherited. Famously, her daughter Sharifah Amani is quite a big name in the film industry at the moment.