More unsolicited advice

MARTIN Nievera and Gary Valenciano remain popular singing stars after decades in the biz—but, they’ve been doing pretty much the same thing for so long that the onus of predictability has crept in.

They should note that, in other performing fields, “maturing” luminaries are intentionally shaking up their “comfortable” career practices—and are benefiting from the conscious “disturbance”:

Bored with their idealized “mainstream” roles, thespic stars Piolo Pascual and John Lloyd Cruz have occasionally “gone indie,” and their recent portrayals have correspondingly perked up, and acquired greater “edge” and “bite.”

On TV, we note that some veteran thespians are making comebacks to acting in teleseryes, after years of relative inactivity.

We would like to encourage them, but some “comebackers” need to make some adjustments to improve their chances of making it again.

For instance, Ana Roces still looks good, but her comeback performance in “Ang Probinsyano” is compromised by the fact that she looks too young for her mature role.

Ana should realize that believability is important in acting, and suitability in terms of age (looking as old as your character is supposed to be) is an essential factor in that regard.

We don’t want Ana to end up like Angelica Panganiban, who was patently too youthful to be believed as the mother of Daniel Padilla, or Vina Morales, who continued to look “young,” even if the character she was playing in “Nasaan Ka Nang Kailangan Kita” had already become a grandmother.