Stardom came suddenly for the 365 Days actor, Michele Morrone: Read his grass to grace story here

The 365 Days actor, Michele Morrone woke up on the morning of June 7 and – as most of us do – reached for his phone to go through his social media.

“When I went to sleep I had no more than 700,000 followers [on Instagram],” he tells The National. “I woke up and I had more than 2.2 million followers. I was like, ‘Wow, what’s happening? What’s going to happen?’” That was the day Netflix released the Polish drama on its streaming platform, throwing the Italian actor into the spotlight. Just over a month later and the R-rated 365 Days has already become one of Netflix's most streamed films of the year.

“I expected the movie to become a hit in Poland and the UK because it was being released in cinemas there,” says Morrone, 29.
He never thought the film was going to become such an international sensation, however. The day after the film was released on Netflix, Morrone left his home in Rome to go and buy some bread. “People were running after me,” he says, recalling the crowd flocking around him, wanting to take pictures. It was a stark contrast to the life the Italian actor had been leading. Only two years ago, he was broke, recently divorced and depressed, working as a gardener in a small Italian village in the north of the country.

“The film changed a lot of things. I was getting more attention and there were also a lot of business requests,” Morrone says. “But in many ways I’m the same person I was 10 years ago.” Morrone is settling into fame quite easily. Since his arrival in Dubai on Sunday, July 19, the Italian star has been spotted lounging in Dubai's Palazzo Versace and cruising around the city in a red Ferrari. But Morrone is actually in town on business.

Morrone was back home in Italy when the pandemic took hold. He says he spent more than two months isolating in his home in Rome. The country was one of the worst affected, with more than 35,000 deaths. The Italian star has a number of other business ventures in the pipeline: he tells us he is working on a perfume line, as well as a swimsuit and kimono line for women.
He is also working on a follow-up to Dark Room, an album he released on Valentine’s Day. Four of the album’s songs were featured in 365 Days, and have collectively garnered more than 100 million plays across streaming platforms.

The inclusion of his music in the film, he says, also happened by chance.
“One night I was having a dinner with the director [Barbara Bialowas] and she asked me what else I wanted to do besides acting. I told her I liked making music and showed her a recording I had done on my phone. She said, ‘Wow, this is going to be in the movie’ and that’s how it started.”



Culled From National.Ae