Tovino Thomas has been one of the few celebrities from the Malayalam film industry who actively participated in the Kerala flood relief work. With the state ravaged due to floods, he aided several volunteers in the relief work which went viral online. While his fans lauded his efforts, there has also been a lot of trolls taking a dig at Tovino, suggesting that he was doing all this for the sake of publicity.
Tovino was seen at many relief camps and helping people both during time of rescue and relief. The Thrissur based actor even opened his home for people to stay. He also kept uploading videos asking people to evacuate and at various stages of rescue and relief, to help educate the public.
Reacting to this criticism strongly, Tovino Thomas said in an interview to Kaumudi online, “I was pained to hear the comment that I took part in the relief work for publicity. I did this only because I’m humane. Now, even if no one sees my films in the name of this allegation, I have no problem. But never say that I did this for publicity. That hurts me… We, actors, are not fools to believe that people affected by flood shall go and see our films (because we did this service).”
Career-wise he has had a busy year with his first film release being Aami on February 9th. He made a cameo appearance in it and then again in Naam. Tovino’s next film release was the bilingual Abhiyude Kadha Anuvinteyum / Abhi and Anu in Malayalam and Tamil. Then came his appreciated role as a hitman on the run for Maradona.
He has a number of projects lined up for release including Oru Kuprasidha Payyan, Theevandi, Luca etc. Also, he has the Tamil film Maari 2 in which he will be seen with Dhanush.
He has also recently joined the sets of Lucifer, which will mark the directorial debut of his contemporary Prithiviraj Sukumaran. In this film, he will be sharing screen space with Mohanlal, Indrajith, Vivek Oberoi, etc. The film is progressing in Thiruvananthapuram right now and reportedly, there are plans to continue the shooting in Mumbai and Dubai in different schedules later on.
(Content provided by Digital Native)