Albie Casiño reveals his struggle with dyslexia

Albie Casiño plays a “Yolanda” survivor in “The Complex.”

Albie Casiño’s learning disability—dyslexia, was discovered when he was in first grade.

“I wasn’t able to read until I was in Grade 4,” he shared with the Inquirer. “I was good in oral recitations, but when it came to reading, I had a tough time.”

Fortunately, his family was very supportive. “My parents enrolled me in the best schools and hired tutors for me.”

He added: “You can cope with dyslexia. It’s just important for you to be aware that you have it, so you can deal with it.”

He was able to overcome his difficulties, but reading scripts and memorizing lines could still be arduous for him, he admitted.

“Some directors allow me to use my own words, but others are strict about delivering the lines as they’re written on the script,” he explained. In the latter case, he said: “I just have to work harder.”

His current girlfriend, model Michelle Arceo, recently gave him a novel, “Diary of an Oxygen Thief.” Much to his surprise, he was able to finish reading it. “But it’s a slim book … only a hundred or so pages.”

Only 24 years young, Albie had already gone through setbacks that could daunt those who were much older.

As a teenager, he figured in a stormy affair with contemporary Andi Eigenmann. Still in his teens, Albie was initially identified as the father of Andi’s daughter Ellie in chismis columns.

Fast forward to the here and now: Andi is now embroiled in a custody battle with Ellie’s real father, Jake Ejercito.

Albie summed up the lessons of that tumultuous episode, thus: “Listen to your parents.”

“I was only 15 when I met Andi, and we dated until I was 18. As expected, my parents were not happy about it,” he looked back. “We were just in high school then. At 17, I started working and making my own money. I thought I was an adult na. When you’re young, you think you know everything.”

On hindsight, the entire experience had made him grow up, he conceded.

“I just took it day by day. I never really thought about it,” he said of how he coped with the deluge of intrigues that came after his breakup with Andi. “But I’m more mature now.”

He remarked that even such seemingly trifling matters as teen romance have a way of hounding you—ad infinitum. “It’s been almost 10 years and people are still talking about it.”

Albie is lucky to have a strong support system, though.

Joining show business certainly presented its fair share of challenges to Albie.

For starters, he confessed that he became more of a scaredy-cat since becoming an actor due to the horror movies he had to make (like “Shake, Rattle and Roll 14,” “Aswang” and “Pwera Usog”).

His latest project, the D5 Studio online series, “The Complex,” is a mystery thriller, as well. (Directed by Prime Cruz, the 10-episode show will debut on D5 Studio’s YouTube channel and portal on Black Saturday, April 15.)

In the series, he plays a nurse who, after surviving Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” moves to Manila from Tacloban and encounters all sorts of creepy occurrences in his new pad.

True to the show’s title, he remarked, his character is “very complex … complicated. He has survivor’s guilt.”

Although he sees his character as a good guy, he can be an enigma, too, he quipped.

Albie pointed out: “Everyone has a dark side. I myself have a temper … especially when I play video games.”

Games like Dota, Mobile Legends, Tekken and 2K, he noted, gave him the license to escape to an unfamiliar world. “People say books allow you to lead multiple lives. Since I’m not into reading, video games give me the same thrill … permitting me to travel to different worlds.”

Online entertainment, like D5 Studio’s “The Complex,” is the future, he asserted. “Now, everyone watches Netflix. The internet is the new TV, and TV is the new radio.”

Albie himself follows a number of online series like “Riverdale” and “Stranger Things.” “I also binge-watch old seasons of ‘Suits’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’ online.”