Here come the real-looking, street-smart kids
For years now, we’ve been bemoaning the fact that our “deathless” colonial mentality has given us too many TV-film stars who look more foreign than Pinoy—and that includes 80 percent of the child performers we have!
This is bad for our movies and TV dramas, because they don’t look and feel real, and viewers have a hard time identifying or empathizing with them.
Well, there’s a bit of good news in that regard—for a welcome change! We note that there are more TV productions these days that field non-tisoy kids in important roles.
In fact, some of them aren’t even good-looking and “generically cute”—they look like real street-smart kids, mga laking kalye, and are thus well-suited to the gutsy and “wa-is” roles that are assigned to them.
We first noted this incipient minitrend on “Ningning,” where the cute title character was soon joined by a nasty little bully, MacMac, played by an “ordinary-looking” child actor (John Steven de Guzman).
He started out as a real turnoff because he made Ningning so miserable—but, after a while, her genuine desire to befriend him despite his nasty behavior began to have a positive effect on him—and MacMac is now her best buddy and protector in the well-liked series!
To his credit, the “ordinary” child actor has been able to make his character’s key change believable and moving, so “Ningning” will definitely not be his last show.
After “Ningning,” the next drama series to feature a non-tisoy and “not pogi” kid in a significant role is “Ang Probinsyano,” with pint-sized Xymon Ezekiel Pineda being tapped to play the scrappy, little “sidekick” of Coco Martin’s Cardo character in the action-drama. The fact that the juvenile actor is feisty and “not pogi” has made him a standout in the series, so he should also do well in the acting biz from here on in.
It’s clear that the two child actors’ believably Pinoy looks and “scrappy” temperament have greatly enhanced their appeal and the empathetic effectivity of their performances. Unlike the usual, blandly tisoy types who have to try really hard to look poor and put-upon, they look and sound “right,” and viewers relate to what they’re doing with no need for “translation.”
This proves our point that, to “get” viewers to fully identify with child characters in dramas, they have to look, not like foreign or tisoy types, but as real as the viewers’ own kids!
We hope that more TV shows feature non-tisoy child performers, because it would add a lot to their all-important believability.
In time, this trend toward more real casting of characters in our local dramas should be further expanded to include teen and adult characters, as well. Yes, let’s have an entertainment industry in which most of the stars and starlets look like us, so we can see the stories they enact as ours, as well. —How wonderful that would be—and we’d be home free!
Role of a lifetime
Last Sunday, we braved the wrath of Typhoon “Lando” to catch one of the remaining performances of “King Lear” at the University of the Philippines’ Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater, with esteemed and acclaimed actor-director Leo Rialp in the challenging title role (Joel Lamangan is his counterpart in the production’s Filipino version).
Despite the special effort involved, we were glad we tagged along with Rito Asilo to watch the show directed by Tony Mabesa, because Leo did memorably well in Shakespeare’s masterwork, in an acting assignment that many actors regard as “the role of a lifetime.”
Other players who similarly made their thespic mark in the production included Jeremy Domingo as the Earl of Kent, Carlo Tarobal as Edgar, Brian Sy as Edmund and Jojo Cayabyab as the Earl of Gloucester.
Remaining performances are on Oct. 24 and 25—call Dulaang UP (926-1349) for details. Other productions this season, “Peer Gynt,” “The Dressing Room” and “Yugto.”
Over lunch after the show, we learned from an exhausted, famished but artistically upbeat and “solved” Leo that his “Oh, My G” TV series was so successful that it’s being brought back as a weekly dramatic anthology of similarly inspiring encounters with the sublime and the Divine (still to be played by him).
Talk about being tapped to play the best characters in the dramatic universe—after portraying King Lear and God Himself, what could Leo possibly do next?!
—Oh, we know: St. Padre Pio (they even look uncannily alike—see photos)!
For years now, we’ve been bemoaning the fact that our “deathless” colonial mentality has given us too many TV-film stars who look more foreign than Pinoy—and that includes 80 percent of the child performers we have!
This is bad for our movies and TV dramas, because they don’t look and feel real, and viewers have a hard time identifying or empathizing with them.
Well, there’s a bit of good news in that regard—for a welcome change! We note that there are more TV productions these days that field non-tisoy kids in important roles.
In fact, some of them aren’t even good-looking and “generically cute”—they look like real street-smart kids, mga laking kalye, and are thus well-suited to the gutsy and “wa-is” roles that are assigned to them.
We first noted this incipient minitrend on “Ningning,” where the cute title character was soon joined by a nasty little bully, MacMac, played by an “ordinary-looking” child actor (John Steven de Guzman).
He started out as a real turnoff because he made Ningning so miserable—but, after a while, her genuine desire to befriend him despite his nasty behavior began to have a positive effect on him—and MacMac is now her best buddy and protector in the well-liked series!
To his credit, the “ordinary” child actor has been able to make his character’s key change believable and moving, so “Ningning” will definitely not be his last show.
After “Ningning,” the next drama series to feature a non-tisoy and “not pogi” kid in a significant role is “Ang Probinsyano,” with pint-sized Xymon Ezekiel Pineda being tapped to play the scrappy, little “sidekick” of Coco Martin’s Cardo character in the action-drama. The fact that the juvenile actor is feisty and “not pogi” has made him a standout in the series, so he should also do well in the acting biz from here on in.
It’s clear that the two child actors’ believably Pinoy looks and “scrappy” temperament have greatly enhanced their appeal and the empathetic effectivity of their performances. Unlike the usual, blandly tisoy types who have to try really hard to look poor and put-upon, they look and sound “right,” and viewers relate to what they’re doing with no need for “translation.”
This proves our point that, to “get” viewers to fully identify with child characters in dramas, they have to look, not like foreign or tisoy types, but as real as the viewers’ own kids!
We hope that more TV shows feature non-tisoy child performers, because it would add a lot to their all-important believability.
In time, this trend toward more real casting of characters in our local dramas should be further expanded to include teen and adult characters, as well. Yes, let’s have an entertainment industry in which most of the stars and starlets look like us, so we can see the stories they enact as ours, as well. —How wonderful that would be—and we’d be home free!
Role of a lifetime
Last Sunday, we braved the wrath of Typhoon “Lando” to catch one of the remaining performances of “King Lear” at the University of the Philippines’ Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater, with esteemed and acclaimed actor-director Leo Rialp in the challenging title role (Joel Lamangan is his counterpart in the production’s Filipino version).
Despite the special effort involved, we were glad we tagged along with Rito Asilo to watch the show directed by Tony Mabesa, because Leo did memorably well in Shakespeare’s masterwork, in an acting assignment that many actors regard as “the role of a lifetime.”
Other players who similarly made their thespic mark in the production included Jeremy Domingo as the Earl of Kent, Carlo Tarobal as Edgar, Brian Sy as Edmund and Jojo Cayabyab as the Earl of Gloucester.
Remaining performances are on Oct. 24 and 25—call Dulaang UP (926-1349) for details. Other productions this season, “Peer Gynt,” “The Dressing Room” and “Yugto.”
Over lunch after the show, we learned from an exhausted, famished but artistically upbeat and “solved” Leo that his “Oh, My G” TV series was so successful that it’s being brought back as a weekly dramatic anthology of similarly inspiring encounters with the sublime and the Divine (still to be played by him).
Talk about being tapped to play the best characters in the dramatic universe—after portraying King Lear and God Himself, what could Leo possibly do next?!
—Oh, we know: St. Padre Pio (they even look uncannily alike—see photos)!
