Massimo Dobrovic is an International Professional Actor based in Los Angeles, CA. He is academically trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He speaks 5 languages fluently and acts in all these languages (English, Italian, Spanish, Croatian, Serbian). He spent most of his life in Rome (Italy), his hometown, residing in the popular neighborhood Garbatella-Ostiense, which became largely known with the Woody Allen movie To Rome with Love. But Massimo was born within the Istrian Italian minority in Istria (Croatia), because his father is from Croatian descen,t while his mom from Italian background. Istrian Italians are an ethnic group ( a national minority) in the northern Adriatic region of Istria, referred to the Italian people of Italy. Historically, they are descendants from the original Latinized population of Roman Istria, from the Venetian-speaking settlers who came to Istria during the time of the Republic of Venice. For this reason. Massimo has two last names De Lorenzi and Dobrovic, he is mostly known with his Croatian last name as Massimo Dobrovic. This rich cultural background gives him the possibility to extend from Italian and Latin roles all the way to Eastern European and Russian characters.
He does an enormous amount of accents and dialects, from Italian, Spanish, Russian, Serbian, Hungarian, Polish, and more. He also does a Standard American accent and a Standard British accent. He began acting at an extremely young age in theaters, and then he moved onto television and film. Massimo has an extensive acting-career in Europe and United States. In the U.S., he is pursuing a variety of roles in movies and television. He is known for making uncommon and incredible strong choices in his acting bringing his characters alive with a unique and energy-twist method. His mentors are Donna Pescow, Karen Hensel, Betty Karlen, Timothy Landfield, Judith Bohanon, Brian Reise, Bob Corff, Bernard Hiller, Brenda Beck, John Griffiths, and many others. Massimo’s passions are also: Tennis, Cooking, Painting,Volleyball, Fishing, Fencing, Beach-Volley, Stage Combat, Martial Arts, Yoga, Dancing and many more.
Congrats on Age of the Living Dead series. It’s a new television series, so we know you can’t say much. Could you give us an outline?
Age of the Living Dead is an extraordinary TV-series about incredible supernatural creatures fighting the other species. I play Marcus, he is the emperor of all vampires; he is the descendant from the original bloodline of all vampires. The story involves humans providing vampires on the opposite coast with a compulsory, weekly blood donation. Eventually, the humans manage to re-arm and plan a nuclear strike on the vampires as a final strategy to end the war. The series shot in LA and it was my second project with Estella Warren after our movie Nocturna; where be both played vampires as well. We love working together; there is an amazing chemistry, friendship and feeling on and off screen. It was a pleasure to work with the entire cast and crew, I’m extremely thankful to our amazing creator Simon Phillips and director Paul Tanter.
Let’s talk Feel the Dead. It’s another television series you’re starring in. Again, we know you can’t share much. Tell us about your role.
We shot this series in the fall of 2016 on Mount Etna, in Sicily, with Italian director John Real. I had huge emotions being able to go back home and work in Italy; it’s been 5-years since I’ve worked in my home-country and it was also my very first project in Sicily, ever. I fell in love with the people, the nature, the food, the fun, I hope to be able to go back to my home country and collaborate with all the wonderful people from the cast and crew again soon. This was my third project with Estella Warren; this one is about zombies though. I play an Italian soldier that is trying to save the population from the zombie virus. Can’t say anything more, you’ll have to watch the series which will air soon on American and Italian TV. There are many love twists and moments. Estella and I loved working in Italy together and all around Europe.
Let’s talk Behind the Curtain of Night. According to IMDB, the story is about ‘a man who sees his past lives from before he was born after being declared dead for the second time.’ Tell us about your character.
Behind The Curtain of the Night is a life after death movie and it is based on a best-selling novel in the Czech Republic. It is a true story and together with director Dalibor Stach, producers Milan Friederich and Phil Goldfine, we were able to bring onto the big screen such meaningful, important and powerful story. Working alongside my brilliant cast (Marcia Cross, Branden Fraser, and Dawn Olivieri) has been a dream come true, we were so blessed that we got to shoot in the best historical locations throughout the entire Czech Republic from Prague to Karlovy Vary and many other important locations. My character lives in the past, present and future times and is a recurring character that our leading character keeps bumping into every-time he is at a crossroads and doesn’t know which path to take and where his life journey will take him after death.
You also have a new cook book about to release soon. Tell us more.
The cookbook has been in development for the last 3-years. It took me 3-years to write this cookbook, because it’s a very elaborate cookbook; I had to measure and re-measure all the quantities and ingredients many times, especially since we use different metrics in Italy. A lot of recipes are from my husband and myself; we cook together to entertain friends. He co-wrote it with me as well. It contains over a hundred recipes and it is called “Italian for Any Occasion” which literally means that you can have easy to prepare, organic and gluten free Italian food for any American or Italian Holiday. It gives you a variety of ideas of what to cook when you don’t have a lot of time for your beloved ones during a Holiday like Memorial Day, Halloween or Independence Day.
You’re known for choosing uncommon and incredibly strong acting roles. Tell us how you choose a script.
I started acting in the theater; I’ve trained classically and I was part of many important classical theater tours around the world. Then I’ve enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and later on I studied with extremely renowned acting coaches and directors in all parts of the planet. For this reason, I’m what would be defined in showbiz “an actor’s actor”. I choose scripts that touch me emotionally on many different levels. The script has to reach to me personally; I have to be able to identify with it and be able to bring my life experiences and adventures into it. I always love to play the villain; that is when as an actor you have the most fun, because you can let your imagination go wild, you can create as though you’re creating a painting of modern art. I love playing other characters as well, like historical figures, heroes and comedic roles among many others. I would say that the most important thing as an actor is to always be fearless and make bold choices, with the stakes being ultra-high without being afraid to experiment or try new techniques, methods or way of approaching a story.
You can speak five languages and you’re trained in a variety of skills. Do these experiences enhance your acting roles?
I’ve always felt that as an actor you have to posses an enormous amount of skills to serve you when you need to create strong characters. I don’t think an actor should ever stop training or learn a new skill because the more skills and specialties you have in your bag of tricks, the more you give yourself a bigger chance to succeed and to perform a variety of roles. For me, being able to speak fluently in five languages and being able to act in all of them, has played a significant part of who I am as an actor. I really feel that I’m an international actor because I love being able to go to South America or Spain and do Latin Telenovelas because I speak Spanish or do soap-operas in Croatia or comedies in Italy as well as movies, TV and theater in all English speaking countries. When you speak all of these languages, you enhance the markets that you can work in as an artist; or if you can play many different sports, specialize in martial arts, dance, etc.,.
What keeps you inspired?
My entire life I’ve been involved with acting out of love for this profession. As an artist, no matter what your art is, if it’s dancing, painting, singing or playing an instrument or any other talent, you have to do it out of pure love and passion for it. We’re artists and our vocation or purpose is to create art and by creating art to affect the people around us and the world that we live in and hopefully our art will be powerful enough to move people, to make them think, to make them understand more and to make them love more; all in all to make this world a better place. What keeps me inspired the most is when I give a chance to people from all ages from younger ones to elderly, people from different backgrounds and different economic and social situations the opportunity to express themselves, to dream, to achieve their goals like I do with my charities. I create, direct shows, teach classes as a volunteer, I donate my time to various organizations and centers for people with diverse disabilities and I give them hope, courage, make them stronger and proud of whom they are, for sure I can say that giving back to the community is what keeps me inspired the most.
Thus far, what has been the best experience working in the industry?
I’ve been super lucky to always have worked with sensational artists, I loved working with everybody I’ve worked with, I’ve learnt a great deal from every single person and I’ve grown tremendously as an artist and as a person with each and every one of them. I’ve learnt so much from stars like Steven Seagal, Marcia Cross, Branden Fraser, Tzi Ma, Estella Warren, Johnathon Schaech, Vinnie Jones and all hugely talented directors like Keoni Waxman, John Real, Simon Phillips or producers like Benjamin Sacks, Binh Dang or Alvaro Duque and many others. I’ve truly been blessed to have worked with the most beautiful personalities in the industry.
Do you have any upcoming projects that we haven’t mentioned?
I’m working on a new super-exciting action/thriller with director Thomas Churchill called Nation’s Fire where I play a powerful serial killer and I have other phenomenal new projects in pre-production for the rest of the year.
Complete this sentence; if I had an opportunity to do anything I want, I would ______.
I would love to end wars, racism, homophobia, and all the bad things that ruin our amazing planet by creating sensational movies that will become cultural for centuries to come.
Connect with Massimo:
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3700767/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dobrovicmassimo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/massimo.dobrovic1
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/massimodobrovic/
Web: http://massimodobrovic.com/
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