Kristoffer Martin: from thug to gay teen

KRISTOFFER Martin tackles “challenging” roles so that he won’t become complacent.

GMA 7 teen actor Kristoffer Martin admits that playing a gay man in an episode of the weekly drama anthology “Magpakailanman” (airing tomorrow) was daunting.

Making it extra challenging, his character swings between two extremes: a Tondo thug turned gay. “He was the neighborhood bully who used to beat up gays. Then he fell in love with his married friend (played by Mark Herras). I kept shifting from tough guy to gentle gay.”

Since it’s on prime time TV, there are no steamy kissing scenes, he related. The “scary” part was his colorful costumes.

Martin had to wear body-hugging tees and short shorts all day. “It was too tight in the crotch area,” he recounted, laughing.

The acclaimed actors who played his parents, Michael de Mesa and Shamaine Buencamino, helped him get into the role. “They brought out the right emotions from me,” Martin said.

He got to meet the man that he played, Christopher “Nog-Nog” Aguinaldo. “He was soft-spoken,” the actor said.

Martin took on the part, he told the Inquirer, because he wanted to break free from the heartthrob hunk mold created in his most recent afternoon soap, “Paraiso Ko’y Ikaw.”

“Once I feel I’m becoming complacent, I look for a different role, so I can push myself,” he explained.

It was for this same reason that he accepted the 2012 Cinemalaya film, Paul Sta. Ana’s  “Oros,” for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Honorable Mention citation at the 16th Long Island International Film Expo in New York last year.

“That was unexpected. I was so happy when I heard the news,” Martin said.

“Oros” was his first indie film and he played a slum dweller. In one long scene, he sprints across a dump site in Manila, stepping on not a few plastic bags of human waste. Talk about immersion.

“That film taught me about life in a desperate situation. I really felt I belonged to that neighborhood.”

For tomorrow’s “Magpakailanman” episode, “Siga Noon, Beki na Ngayon,” Martin immerses himself in another impoverished community, this time in Quezon City.

At first, he recounted, he was worried that the residents would make fun of his girly outfits. “What happened was, the neighborhood kids complimented me, saying I looked pretty.”

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