(Courtesy of Didi Riyadi)

Actor and musician Didi Riyadi, 32, is back with a director'€™s cap on his head for a short film, Cupcakes, part of the Wanita Tetap Wanita (A Woman is A Woman) omnibus. And when his music band, Element, is on inactive mode, Didi has fun playing basketball with friends.

'€œThis is my debut [Directing], so the experience was amazing.  All things that happened [during production] were all beyond my imagination, beyond my expectations. I'€™m talking about sitting on a director'€™s chair for a feature film '€” a big project.

I stuttered at first, but thankfully we gathered up for a technical meeting before filming, and we had  supervisors for directors involved in the omnibus. So, overall filming went very smoothly. I spent three days in Bogor [West Java] to shoot my film.

I have been watching movies since I was a kid '€” that is all [the experience] I need to work as a director, plus I had some good years of experience as an actor in soap operas. The film is very pop with strong dramatic elements. While directing, I requested my cast members to act natural; I don'€™t want them to appear fake.  

Overall, I did not have much trouble while directing my cast. I even had to lead a cast member, Samantha Beeson, who had no experience at all in acting. She was a business student from the UK, but she did really well in my movie.

I found a slight difference, especially in terms of acting style, between soap operas and feature films. When you are making movies for the big screen, you just need to act naturally. No excessive expressions needed.

Honestly, I do not like to compare acting for soap operas with feature films. But, for soap operas, you just need to give a little more because, unlike films, television consists of so many channels and programs. You need to do more to get noticed.

It has been fun to be a director and, of course, I would love to create more films in the future. However, I never viewed this as an option for my career '€” being a director was just a branch in the entertainment world.

In the future, I hope to take on the challenge of becoming a producer. I mean, why not? I can save some money to do that later.

My main hobby is playing basketball. I have a team, which is not only practicing once a week but also participating in competitions in Jakarta. My team mates include [actor, model and basketball athlete] Samuel Rizal and Hardi Hartono.'€

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