Racism should be dealt with seriously: Michele
If there is anyone who can talk about overnight stardom, it probably would be Italian actor-singer Michele Morrone, who recently shot to fame with his film 365 Days. Morrone, who played the role of Don Massimo Torricelli in the film that released on OTT, credits the movie as a “turning point in his career”. About how “crazy” it was to see a sudden spike in his follower count on Instagram, he says, “The day after the film released, I got a lot of new followers on social media. I’m almost close to the 10 million mark on Instagram. It is a very nice feeling when people appreciate what you did.”
So, how does he deal with this sudden stardom? “I’m super happy with the appreciation I’ve received. But I don’t want to lose time thinking about my success. I just want to keep working so that my fans are happy,” says Morrone, who is also a singer and a musician.
The 29-year-old, who lists The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Beethoven and Chopin among his musical inspiration, released his debut album, Dark Room, earlier this year, and has now released a video for his song, Hard For Me. Talking about his plans for future albums, he says, “You will always find the same Michele, but with different moods. As far as the lyrics are concerned, it will be more mature.”
Shooting is yet to resume in a lot of countries due to the ongoing pandemic. Will he be comfortable in filming intimate scenes given the risk? “I am not scared to do intimate scenes. And I believe, when I am doing a scene, I am just doing my job and because the script wants me to do this. I am an actor and I am ready to do everything,” he asserts.
On the subject of racial discrimination, which continues to be a burning topic globally, Morrone says, “Racism should be dealt with very seriously. We should fight against this together. But I cannot understand how we still have this problem in 2020. We have [bigger] issues such as global warming, people killing animals to make money and economic troubles, which are totally ignored.”
The controversy over actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death grows with each passing day. And Tanushree Dutta, who left Bollywood over a decade ago and is in the US at present, is keeping herself posted with the developments.
However, the actor, whose sexual harassment complaint against actor Nana Patekar — filed on October 10, 2018 —was closed by Mumbai Police last year citing lack of evidence, isn't happy with the probe. “Mumbai Police can’t be trusted with doing a fair investigation,” she says, adding, “They are usually too quick to dismiss such cases.”
“In my case too, they pretended to investigate for months. I wasted so much time and energy doing an FIR, submitting a wealth of evidence and witness testimonies, video footage. Yet in their final report they refused to even take into account all that evidence, didn’t follow up with key witnesses who were threatened into silence by Nana’s lawyers... What we had provided to Mumbai Police, had it been in the US, all those people would’ve been sentenced to prison,” she says.
Lauding those rallying to get a fair probe for the late actor, Dutta says, “I was really shocked. I thought after Jiah Khan (who died in 2013) nothing of this sort would happen in Bollywood. Sushant’s story is even more heartbreaking as he had everything going for him.”
What also followed Rajput’s death has been a debate about nepotism and insiders vs outsiders. Dutta says there are some people who are in a successful place and have the power to destroy an actor. “I got saved because I went away. If I had stuck around then I know that there is only so much your mind can take. Sad Sushant couldn’t walk away,” she adds.