SOROUSH HELALI AGENT BY DAY, ACTOR BY NIGHT

Acting will always be a hustle, says Soroush Helali as he takes his seat in the Gulf News office studio.

- By Manjusha Radhakrishnan Entertainment, Lifestyle and Sport Editor

By day, he is selling luxury villas and apartments in Dubai Hills. By night, he is reading scripts, preparing for roles and auditioning for international productions. Both lives, he insists, are equally real.

"You never know when your next acting project is coming. Sometimes, it's five months of silence. Real estate keeps me grounded — but acting keeps me alive."

Helali, who was born in Iran and raised in Belgium, has quickly emerged as a new face of Dubai's global creative economy — one that does not require an artist to abandon financial ambition in pursuit of art.

"In acting, you get a lot of 'No's'. You wait for that one 'yes' that changes everything," he says. "Real estate is exactly the same. One deal can shift your life."

WHY DUBAI WAS THE CHOICE

While most actors relocate to Mumbai, Los Angeles or London chasing auditions, Helali decided to build his career from Dubai. He didn't see the city as a limitation, but as his launch pad.

"Everybody was telling me I have an international face," he says, recalling his early acting days in Belgium. "They meant I could connect globally, not just locally. So I started auditioning internationally while living here."