Bollywood actor Dino Morea made his Telugu acting debut with Agent over the weekend. Shedding his good boy persona, Dino took on the meaty antagonist’s role in the Akhil Akkineni starrer. The actor played the role of a highly trained RAW agent who went rogue after the system betrays him. Although his Telugu debut, Dino is no stranger to the South film industries. He has already worked in Tamil (Kandukondain Kandukondain, 2000, his second film in his career) and Malayalam (Solo, 2017) in the past.
So what took him so long to sign a Telugu film? Dino tells News18.com exclusively that it was not a purposeful delay. “It took me this long to be a part of a Telugu film because quite honestly, I was not offered any Telugu script before this,” he said.
In his very first Telugu film, Dino stars alongside Telugu superstar Nagarjuna’s son Akhil Akkineni. Ask him if the young star had the airs of being from a prestigious filmy family, Dino said that while he comes from an illustrious background, he never made anyone feel as such on sets.
“Working with Akhil was an absolute treat. Yes, he comes from a big family, he’s Nagarjuna’s son but never once did you ever feel that the person comes from family royalty, so to speak. He was just like any other young guy I worked with. He is a hardworking and disciplined actor, and he was so into this film and wanting to prove himself which was amazing. Never did he make anyone on the set feel like he comes from this family,” Dino said, adding that they grew a close bond and friendship during the course of the film’s making.
“When I shooting in Hyderabad, I did go over to his house once or twice and it was absolutely wonderful like you do with any other friend,” he added.
Besides working with Akhil Akkineni, Dino Morea also shared scenes with legendary Malayalam actor Mammootty. Speaking about his experience of working with him, Dino said, “Working with Mammothy sir is an absolute treat. When you watch a person of his stature, with his skill and with the number of accolades he’s won for his acting, when you watch them on sets, it’s just beautiful. For me in moments like these, all I do is watch, listen, and observe. A few conversations about films and acting but it’s mostly observing, watching, and learning from the best. In my scenes with Mammothy Sir, we were obviously playing characters who oppose each other, for me it was utterly challenging and beautiful. I take this as a challenge because it brings out the best actor in me.”
“I want to be one up, I want to be better and I want to prove myself, especially when you have someone like them watching you and listening to your dialogues and you’re listening to their dialogues and reacting, it’s brilliant, it’s such a healthy environment. Did I get intimidated? Never at all. First of all, he doesn’t intimidate you, he’s very helpful,” he added.
Dino is among those league of actors who began their careers as a model before transitioning into Bollywood stars. While the transition at the time seemed easy, Dino feels that the shift from modelling to acting in today’s time might not be the same.
“The transition for me from modelling to music videos to advertisements to movies at that point of my career, this was in 1999-2000, was easy, was fantastic. To be honest, I really don’t know what the situation is today but I would think it would be far tougher because now for anyone to become an actor, we have casting agencies and most guys who want to become actors go straight to casting agencies, come from film schools, come from acting schools and they are outstanding and waiting to be given an opportunity and they don’t necessarily have to be a model first,” he said.
“Those days when we started, the industry was just opening up and booming so we did get that recognition and we did get that acknowledgement and people saw us far more than they see models today, I think. That’s why the transition, in my opinion, was much much easier than as to what it is now,” Dino added.
