His bearded look grabbed a lot of attention and was perfect for some of the roles Dino Morea was seen in recently. “The decision to go clean-shaven again was because I hadn’t seen my face for three years,” he says as he sported the look in multiple projects back-to-back. He explains, “I had the beard for three years. I did Hostages, Tandav, and then The Empire with a longer beard. People saw me in this new look, liked it and so work kept coming in. It became my signature look.”

So, wasn’t it tough to come to a decision to go clean-shaven? “It wasn’t a hard decision. See, the look created a buzz because nobody really saw me in that avatar, especially the one from The Empire where my character looked menacing and dangerous. Even after The Empire, I continued to sport the beard because I did three films… one Telugu, Malayalam and a Hindi film (with the beard). I feel fine now in the new look. It takes a day or two to get used to it. These are beard stories. To shave or not to shave is a bit of a decision. It is a man's decision. Men also have these problems you see.”

His current look, he says, has taken his fans back to his earlier days. He shares, “It took them back to my Raaz, Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, Fight Club – Members Only days where I was always clean-shaven. Filmmakers have already seen me in a different light (in my bearded look). They have seen me perform. So, interesting stuff is coming my way, a lot in the negative space. Now when they see that I am clean-shaven again I don’t know if that changes, but a clean-shaven guy can also be menacing.”

If there’s one thing that changes Dino wishes is that he gets approached to play a romantic lead. He signs off saying, “I do miss playing the romantic lead. I want to do a really beautiful romantic film. I can’t wait to be a part of a lovely love story again.”

Dino Morea has been in the industry for over two decades and has seen his share of ups and downs. After a break and some self-introspection, the actor came back in the news with OTT shows like Tandav and The Empire. Dino, who is all pepped now, tells BT, “If I am still being offered work and getting acknowledged for it, I guess it means I have done something right.” Excerpts:

Talking about his Bollywood journey, he says, “At one point, I was doing the same thing repeatedly. There was a time when filmmakers were casting Bipasha (Basu) and me in films, as we were looked upon as a hit jodi. I think we did around five films together. Then both of us consciously decided not to do any more films together because, ultimately, people would get bored. Then I did some ‘guy films’ like Plan and Fight Club – Members Only. My career started with a bang, then it slipped and hit rock bottom. There are times when you are tempted to pick up a small role because the money offered is huge, but you have to stand by your decision. Today, my driving force is nothing but good roles.”

He adds, “Sustaining in this industry is tough. If you are not from the film industry, you often think you are being guided correctly by people who are from here, but later you realize that everyone is only looking out for themselves. The film industry taught me a lot. It opened my eyes in so many ways. When your stocks are low, people will not give you movies and that’s the time you have to work on yourself and hope that something comes your way and grab it before somebody else does.”

At one point, the actor started turning down offers, elaborating on that phase of his life, the Tandav actor says, “I had started doing smaller roles with the hope that one day I will get a bigger role in a big film. Then one day, I decided that I should start declining projects that had nothing for me to offer. I was worried about whether I will get work in films again. Because, as they say, out of sight is out of mind. There are times when you are tempted to pick up a small role because the money offered is huge, but you have to stand by your decision. Today, my driving force is nothing but good roles. Fortunately, the OTT space opened, offers started coming in, and people are appreciating my work. I am all pepped up now. Give me a great role and I will smash it. Today, I am dying to do a really big Hindi theatrical film… something that becomes hugely successful, commercially, like Raaz.”

In recent times, Dino has particularly enjoyed essaying characters with grey shades, like he did in his Telugu debut Agent earlier this year. He shares, “Gone are the days of being heroes or villains, today, it is all about playing characters. Every film is about characters and if you play your character well, then people will love it. It doesn’t matter whether you are playing an antagonist or a protagonist, it is about what you are adding to the story. As a villain, you can bring a certain madness to the screen. The audience loves to see a bad boy on screen.”

It’s a wonderful time to be an actor amid the OTT boom. Ask Shabana Azmi who got a taste of Indian digital entertainment with The Empire (2021), following it up with the recent international offering, Halo. Thrilled about the opportunities coming her way, the actor credits the OTT revolution for enabling her to experiment with varied roles. “Since OTT doesn’t depend on immediate box-office gains, unlike films that heavily bank on them, the content can be varied,” she says.

But where there is an upside, there is a flipside, too. The actor is worried that Indian streaming platforms are roping in stars to appeal to the masses instead of focussing on content. She says, “I think OTT platforms are losing the opportunity of creating their own stars. Why are they running after the big stars and big banners? That was [never the] mandate. Instead of focussing on content and giving opportunities to independent directors to make documentaries that have archival value, they are falling into the trap of whodunits, abusive language, sex, and violence. Don’t miss the woods for the trees.”

There’s something about the first day of shoot — it can make even the finest actors a ball of nerves. Shabana Azmi draws an interesting analogy, as she explains, “Slipping into a role on the first day is like entering the living room of a person you have never met. Sometimes, you can make friends with the character instantly; at other times, it takes a few meetings to warm up.” 

It probably best sums up the headspace of the senior actor, who kicks off the shoot of Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani at Powai today. The film, starring Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Jaya Bachchan and Dharmendra, marks her first collaboration with director Karan Johar. “It’s a comedy that deals with some important issues in a breezy way. I find it challenging to play a character in a Karan Johar film. He is both respectful and irreverent, and is open to suggestions. The prep has been invigorating. I have known Karan as a podgy teenager who would come to meet Javed [Akhtar, husband].”

One of the reasons she was drawn to the project was that it gave her the opportunity to share screen space with Bachchan. “I decided to join FTII [Film and Television Institute of India] after I saw a diploma film starring Jaya Bhaduri. I was taken by her life-like performance. Her work in Abhimaan [1973] and Mili [1975] continue to move me deeply.”

Before she slips into haute couture for Johar’s movie, Azmi is basking in the praise coming her way for The Empire. She was magnetic as the shrewd strategist Aisan Daulat Begum in the period drama. “The most important compliment came from Javed. We are stingy with compliments, and offer an honest appraisal of each other’s work. [A performance] can seem effortless only after a lot of effort is put in during the prep. I am happy that Hindi projects have now started the practice of readings and workshops before the actors go on set.”

That isn’t the only change in Indian entertainment. Today, senior women actors — including Dimple Kapadia and Neena Gupta — are bagging powerful roles. Glad that the industry has left behind its ageist ways, Azmi says, “Finally, substantial roles are being written for women. It is a healthier ecosystem to work in.”

If there is one thing The Empire has achieved, it is showcasing the talent of its women actors. Sahher Bambba was confident in her portrayal of Babur’s wife, Maham Begum, as she joined Shabana Azmi and Drashti Dhami on the series. “The women in the show are so powerful. That’s a rarity. Sharing the frame with Shabana Azmi was intimidating, but she taught me that it’s alright to feel butterflies in your stomach before a shot,” says the actor.

While it has been a tough climb after her debut film Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (2019) bombed at the box office, Bambba is not deterred. She has bagged another Disney+ Hotstar show — Those Pricey Thakur Girls, based on Anuja Chauhan’s book of the same name. “Habib Faisal was directing the show; that’s what made me test for it. I did a couple of [auditions] that took over a month. Habib sir wanted to be sure of who he is casting as the lead.”

The drama, set in the ’80s, will see her play newsreader Debjani Thakur, who has high ambitions and the grit to realise them. While Faisal helmed the first part of the series, the directorial baton was soon passed on to Tarun Mansukhani. “The credit of world-building goes to Habib sir. He was sure of the clothes, even the watch I am wearing on the show. He set the DNA of the character so well that Tarun sir didn’t take much time to adapt when he stepped in.”

The makers are eyeing an October release for the series.

The Empire transported the audience to the Mughal era, showing them the rise of Babur, played by Kunal Kapoor. While the ever-dependable Shabana Azmi walked away with the lion’s share of praise, all eyes are now on Aditya Seal, who played Humayun in the Disney+ Hotstar series. The actor will presumably headline the next edition, which will be based on Alex Rutherford’s second book in Empire Of The Moghul series, Brothers At War.

Seal has effortlessly switched from his role as urbane chocolate boy in Student Of The Year 2 to donning a period character. “I did not approach Humayun as the successor to the throne. The show sees him in his younger years, and he is still naive. He eventually becomes more aware of the responsibility on his shoulders. I treated him as a young boy,” he says, pointing out how the fight sequence at the market place displays his naiveté.

In the week since the Nikkhil Advani-backed series dropped online, Seal says he has been bombarded with messages. He considers the show his long-awaited breakthrough. “I have never worked on a period project. I slowly understood the magnitude of the show. The grandeur on set was so consuming that as an actor, you get into the zone. Working with Nikkhil has been inspiring. The show makes people realise that there’s a lot more to me. That action sequence is based on prep. I am a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo. I need to keep showing my range gradually.”

But, the series’ last few episodes aren’t without faults. The show has been criticized for casting 22-year-old Sahher Bambba as the on-screen mother to 33-year-old Seal. The actor admits he had his share of concerns. “But Mitakshara [Kumar, director] said it’s not a [cause for] worry as I wouldn’t stand next to her in too many scenes. The scenes in which I am with her, the ageing of her character does show,” he defends, before quipping, “To be honest, my mother can pass off as my sister.”

"Finally, it feels like good days are here,” begins Dino Morea, who considers The Empire a new lease of life that he has been awaiting for a decade. The actor plays Shaybani Khan, the nemesis to Kunal Kapoor’s Babur, in the Disney+ Hotstar offering. Morea, who likens the character to a ferocious panther, says he prepped hard to slip into the part, giving him kohl-lined eyes and a ruthless air. “Shaybani has animalistic traits. He is cunning and agile. When I read the episodes, I knew it was an opportunity of a lifetime. I worked extensively to imbibe the stealthiness of the part. He is a guy whose next move can’t be predicted; I gave him a madness of his own,” he says.

The character’s fierceness has reminded many of Ranveer Singh’s portrayal of Alauddin Khilji in Padmaavat (2018). “At least I am compared to the very best. Ranveer pulled off that character with such finesse. The comparison is a compliment,” laughs Morea.

After foraying into films with Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi (1999), the actor was typecast as the chocolate boy and featured in several forgettable movies. He hopes The Empire will be the beginning of a new innings. “There have been far too many disillusioning years where I kept saying no to everything coming my way. The wait can make you insecure. People around would keep saying that out of sight is out of mind in this industry. I could’ve been disillusioned, but I decided to stay afloat.”

In his bid to find content that he believes in, Morea turned producer. His second production Helmet will drop on ZEE5 next week. The actor-producer is flush with optimism as he says, “Tandav and Mentalhood were the warm-up for this big break in The Empire. There is a sense of maturity that has come to my acting. I have worked on myself and am picking my roles with caution. I love the compliments on my looks, but I refuse to just be an eye candy. The constant endeavour is to deliver performances that prove my mettle as an actor.”

Kapoor as Babur; (right) Morea as Muhammad Shaybani Khan

Retelling the events leading up to the First Battle of Panipat, led by Mughal emperor Babur, on screen is a tall order. The challenge is heightened when you have to recreate the 16th century battle amid the biggest setback of the 21st century — Coronavirus. So, how did creator-producer Nikkhil Advani and director Mitakshara Kumar create The Empire — featuring Kunal Kapoor, Shabana Azmi and Dino Morea, among others — in the face of such obstacles? “Detailed research, patience and with the help of an army of people,” says Kumar, who walks us through the making of the Disney+ Hotstar offering.

It helped that Kumar trained Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s projects, Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018), two of the country’s most ambitious period dramas. The director admits her eye for precision was often a joke on set. “Nikkhil would tell me no one is checking if the flags in the battle sequences are aligned or not. But when one is making a show of this nature, we might as well perfect it.”

The beginning — adapting the first book from Alex Rutherford’s Empire of the Moghul series into a screenplay — was not daunting for writers Kumar and Bhavani Iyer, courtesy the book’s thorough research and gripping story. But bringing alive the screenplay was a different ball game altogether. Much like mentor Bhansali, who had once famously said that he scores for his songs while in the shower, Kumar says music played a key part in visualising the world. “Music helps me transport myself to that era. I visualise everything.”

After developing the screenplay through 2017-18, came the detailed storyboarding by Advani and her. The duo roped in cinematographer Nigam Bomzan to support their vision on ground. “We have not had a historical series in Indian digital entertainment, but we’ve had shows like Tipu Sultan or even Bharat Ek Khoj, which were brilliant. Sadly, we stopped making them. There is no visual reference for a DoP [director of photography] for stories belonging to that era, besides all the [international] shows and films.”

Even as his lens captured the visual grandeur of the era, Bomzan says his focus was on the story. “In this case, it was more of the conflict of an individual’s mind and his internal battles. We never let the backdrop of royalty overpower the story of Babur.”

He remembers being a ball of nerves before shooting the first battle sequence at Film City in January 2020. “It is difficult to shoot large-scale battles, and the realisation dawned on me as I drove to the set at 5 am. All I could see was several tents in a row, with a sea of people getting into their costumes. When the time came to film the battle, there were an additional number of horses, elephants and cannons. It was nerve-wracking, but then there was Nikkhil [director for the war scenes] who was calm and brought in his years of experience. He had all the shots broken down beforehand. He was patient as that’s the only way one can shoot with animals in the midst of live explosions that we were doing.”

The responsibility of dressing Kapoor’s Babur and Morea’s Shaybani Khan in the finest while staying true to the nomadic vibe of the clan was given to costume designer Sheetal Sharma. She fell back on the paintings and books to study their sartorial evolution. “We have used a lot of central Asian embroidery. Textile-wise, we have used raw jute and handloom fabrics, taking inspiration from the rugs of Persia.” 

For the artillery, Sharma added a touch of mushroom leather and faux fur to make the armour look more powerful. While the women — Aisan Daulat Begum and Khanzada Begum portrayed by Azmi and Drashti Dhami respectively — were draped in earthy tones, with a slight splash of blues and reds, it was their jewellery that was paid attention to. “We’ve used a lot of rustic antique jewellery and beautiful stones like turquoise and blue sapphire.”

It was sheer luck that the makers had scheduled the primary war sequences in the first schedule. Only 21 days into the shoot, the team found themselves facing an entirely unexpected enemy — the pandemic. The shoot was halted for five months as the country went into lockdown, and shoots were suspended till August. As the team returned to the set in September, Kumar remembers wondering how she would pull off a period drama in the face of the COVID-induced restrictions. “It was a nightmare post COVID. You couldn’t shoot with more than 50 people, so scenes had to be reconstructed to accommodate the crowd. The looks of the characters had to be reworked as the number of people on screen reduced, but the scene had to stand out. We worked around the logistical limitations, including shooting intimate sequences first. We shot a lot less, which is why 90 days stretched to 120 days,” recounts Kumar.

The biggest blow of the pandemic was having to drop the 35-day schedule in Uzbekistan that was slated for 2020. “Real locations lend authenticity. No one will notice, but I would have preferred a bustling set with 300 junior artistes. That said, as a director, I feel my finesse will show if the show is grand despite all these limitations.”

With the Uzbekistan schedule out the window, art director Priya S found herself shouldering a daunting task — to recreate the central Asian country in Mumbai. “Wai became Babur’s Samarkand. Film City [housed] Shaybani Khan’s tent. In Madh Island, we [built] Fergana Darbar. Budget was the biggest challenge,” she recalls.

Primarily an architect, Priya says she studied the architecture of Uzbekistan to rise to the job. “We tried to do justice to the beautiful Uzbekistan architecture by way of colourful mosaics, religious symbols, and abstract geometrical patterns. [These are found] on almost every palace, mosque, and minaret, and characterise the turquoise-hued country,” she explains.

How did they stay within budget, given the change in plans prompted by the pandemic? Producer Madhu Bhojwani, who handles the finances of Advani’s productions, quips, “What makes you think we didn’t go over-budget?”

She says it wasn’t creating the show that cost them as much as the inactivity of 2020 did. “We had to work hard to hold together. Daily-wage workers had to be paid, and we were responsible for those on our payroll. There have been some crucial takeaways that we will employ in the future seasons.”

A crew of 80-plus, four schedules and 120 days of shooting later, Advani and Kumar are ready to offer their retelling of Babur’s journey to the audience. The genesis of the show was four years ago with the erstwhile Fox team, during the making of POW: Bandi Yuddh Ke that was produced by Advani as well. Producers Monisha Advani and Bhojwani are fairly confident that they have a great series at hand. Though it’s probably the first big-budget historical series in Indian digital space, Bhojwani believes the story itself is familiar. “If anything, we are the last to tell it,” she notes.

In fact, Karan Johar was to make the period drama, Takht that focused on the Mughal empire. Monisha remembers a dinner party where Johar and Bhojwani were exchanging notes on the period. “He had just come back from his Italy recce, and Madhu was in the thick of things with this series. There they were amid all that laughter, showing each other their visual palettes, and locations of Florence and Uzbekistan,” she laughs.

The challenges have been myriad — from the inception to the latest comparisons with Game Of Thrones. Needless to say, nothing was as excruciating as the pandemic constraints. “But we’d do it all over again, and hopefully for many seasons,” signs off Monisha.

Telling a Mughal story comes with the risk of hurting sentiments in the current climate. Monisha explains, “There is a level of sensitivity in us as storytellers to make sure we are respectful of everyone’s culture. We focused on telling the story of a family and the drama of these personalities.”

The Samarkand palace recreated in Wai