Victor cooks up a storm in the kitchen and on screen

VICTOR Neri enjoys working with kids because of the shorter work hours.

Actor-turned-chef Victor Neri would choose whipping up meat recipes over portraying meaty roles any time.

“Acting is only my fallback,” said Victor, who lived abroad for seven years to study culinary arts. Since his return over five months ago, he has been seen in the drama series “Hawak Kamay” on ABS-CBN and in the GB Sampedro film “Separados,” an entry in the recent Cinemalaya Philippine

Independent Film Festival.

“Cooking is also an art form, but totally different from acting,” noted Victor, who first tried cooking at age 9.

Wringer

In 2007, he took a break from acting to enroll in a year-long course at the Le Cordon Bleu Dusit Culinary School in Bangkok.

He recounted: “I trained in different restaurants. I went through the wringer, starting as a lowly assistant. I peeled [potatoes] and worked 10 a.m. to 12 midnight for six months straight. Pure hard work.”

Victor has since lived in other Asian cities, like Hong Kong and Beijing.

He is opening a restaurant in The Fort, Taguig, and coproducing a cooking show on the Asian Food Channel (AFC) later this month.

Victor has taped a special episode of “Ipaglaban Mo” on ABS-CBN, said his manager Noel Ferrer. In “Hawak Kamay,” Victor played Pedring, father of Zaijian Jaranilla’s character Emong. He said, “My role is that of a good father who messed with the wrong people, which cost him his life.”

Baby boy

Victor, whose wife is giving birth to a

baby boy in three months, said he enjoyed working with Zaijian. He is convinced that the kid, as well as costars Xyriel Manabat, Andrea Brillantes and Yesha Camille are the “future superstars of local show biz.”

He added: “I’m confident that Yesha will go a long way. At age 5, she already has presence of mind and is very responsible. She even reminds the production team about continuity.”

Victor feels lucky that most of his scenes in “Hawak Kamay” required him to work closely with a minor. “We don’t work beyond 9 p.m. because of the children. The Department of Labor and Employment is very strict about their work hours. The next time I get an offer to work on a teleserye, I’ll make sure to work with children. They’re the boss now,” he said chuckling.

Changes

Victor also said he learned a lot from the Cinamalaya movie that he made, especially about the changes in show business since he went abroad. “I got the script three months after I arrived from Bangkok. I worked on the movie while trying to settle in. I filmed for six days and didn’t have a hard time on the set. I just wasn’t used to working at past 1 in the morning,” he told the Inquirer.

“I consider myself lucky that my first indie was well-funded and star-studded. We were fed four times a day, much like in a mainstream production,” the actor pointed out. “But I think a film needs to have at least P3 million as budget. No matter how good your scriptwriter, director and actors are, if you could spend only P500,000 then making a good film would be a challenge.”

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