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Mislina Mustaffa is not your average actress.

She is from a middle-class Malay-Muslim family but she keeps a dog; a red poodle she calls Atan and now Mislina is on a quest: to feel how it is to be homeless.

The actress has recently started a project known as “Homeless By Choice”.

She sold off her house and now lives here at her friend’s house.
“The government is always imposing on us. We give you bank loans, we give you this, we give you that. So that you can buy a house. It’s a security. You will be secured with a house, but if you end up with working for the rest of your life, and at the end of the day, you end up with little money or no money and you are old and you cannot go anywhere, or maybe you are sick or whatever. Is that security?”

Mislina rose to fame with the film Bukak Ali by respected director Osman Ali.

The film was controversial because it was about sex workers in Malaysia.

Since then she has been in a number of films directed by Osman Ali, such as Malaikat Di Jendela, Anak Halal and Cun.

Mislina has two dogs, Monk and Atan.

Her dogs were taken care of by her friends while she started her homeless project.

“I actually have no problem departing with anything except for dogs because when you have dogs or pets, you are attached to them. More than cats because you just have to feed the cats food, and then they don’t respond to you but dogs are so attached. So I actually face problems parting with my dogs.”

Mislina has received criticisms from the Muslim community condemning her act for having dogs as pet which is considered “haram” in Islamic law.

“I realize that I am a born muslim but I do not know what the real Islam teaching is because only after 200 or 300 years, the teacihng of Muhammad is being written by humans.”

She supported Occupy Dataran, a movement to reclaim the main public space in the capital called Dataran Merdeka.

Around two hundred people slept in the square for two weeks.

“During Occupy Dataran, there were all sorts of thing. All sorts of bad negative remarks about me and one of them was like, because you are bald, so you are going into hell. I said why? Because you are trying to be a man. Just by being bald? I am a woman, I would want to get married. I was once married, I have a child. Doesn’t that enough to tell you I am a woman? And then they say you are bald, so you are going into hell. Are you telling me that all those African women with no hair, but they are muslim too.  Are they going to hell because they have no hair?”

The criticism towards her is getting more aggressive ever since she started her homeless project.

But she is determined to walk her own path and not let opinions and criticisms get into her way.

“I felt if I follow that, I am so stupid and I am actually oppressing myself and I am actually humiliating my God for giving me brain, but not using it. You know what I mean."