Dino Morea: It is scary when you have to wait for good work and stop saying yes to rubbish, mediocre films

Dino Morea knows the value of money, and is very sure that one can only focus on one’s craft when the financials are sorted. There have been points in his career, he admits, when he didn’t even know if he will ever get work again.

He calls the wait for the next project “scary”. “It is a tough time in your life, especially when this is the career path you have chosen. When you make a decision to stop saying yes to rubbish, mediocre films, or roles that are not going to help you in any way. To make a conscious decision to say no. Then at the back of your mind you also have your insecurities ‘oh God, will I ever even work again?’,” he shares.

And this prompted him to get into production. His debut film as a producer, Helmet, released on an OTT platform owing to the pandemic. “You want to stay in the industry and stay relevant… I simultaneously worked on myself every day, being prepared so that in the event of somebody offering me something. I go there and shine. That opportunity came my way in the form the web show The Empire, so there are tough moments. I won’t lie. You need to keep doing other things, you need to make money, you can’t live off fresh air,” laughs Morea.

He tried his hand at a couple of businesses apart from acting, which were hits and misses. He says, “Some didn’t succeed, some did. You can’t be stuck every day, waiting. The tough part is balancing being relevant in the film industry, and at the same time, doing something that is totally different because you are trying to earn money. Only I would know the hardships.”

Agreeing with what Shah Rukh Khan once said ‘Don’t become a philosopher before you become rich’, he goes on to say, “When you are in a position of hunger, you can’t say you want to only focus on craft, you can say that in a position of money. You have to make ends meet. If you think you are going to get by without that, it is a tough one.”