“Love what you do and do the best that you can. Respect the people around you all the time because no man is an island.”
In this month's "What I've Learned," one of the lead stars of the historical fiction comedy "Isang Komedya sa Langit," Jaime Fábregas, shares some reflections from his remarkable journey. #EsquirePHVideo
In this month's "What I've Learned," one of the lead stars of the historical fiction comedy "Isang Komedya sa Langit," Jaime Fábregas, shares some reflections from his remarkable journey. #EsquirePHVideo
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00:00It's only now in my old age that I'm getting scared of doing things.
00:04I was never scared when I was young.
00:07People ask me,
00:07I'm not going to retire. Why will I retire?
00:10We're there until God says,
00:30Everything that's happened to me, I think, in film, in television, music, and acting and stuff, all started with theater.
00:40If I had not done the theater, I would not have reached what I have reached, whatever it is, you know, because they say I'm successful, but I'm not that sure.
00:49You know, in the first place, I think with me, it was innate.
01:00I had it in me and that it was recognized by people like Peke and all these other directors, the Jesuit priests in Attenerda Naga, my teacher in Naga Parroquia School.
01:11They all saw that thing in me and they wanted me to probably grow it, right?
01:17You know, make something of that.
01:19And then we would do workshops with Peke, a lot of workshops.
01:22We worked with him, Eric Morris, you call it, whatever it was.
01:31It was fun.
01:32It was nice to do and it was, it felt good, you know, it felt good.
01:36And like I said, and because you're young, no fear, you know what I mean?
01:42No, no saying, I cannot do this.
01:45No, I can't do that.
01:46I'm scared to do that or I'm scared to do that.
01:48I might fail.
01:48Nothing of that, you know, because, because it didn't exist, you know, as far as we were concerned at the time, it didn't exist.
01:55And I guess, again, it's what's catapulted my entire life.
01:59It's only now in my old age that I'm getting scared of doing things.
02:03I was never scared when I was young.
02:06Like I tell everybody who I talk to, kids who I talk to, I said, fear is your biggest enemy.
02:12If you get scared to fail, you're dead meat.
02:15But whatever role it is, my first question is, where did he come from?
02:34Because if you tell me, he's a 50-year-old man, he's rich, he's married, he's got five kids, he lives in a gated community, papa, papa, he's got business that's successful, all of that is great and good.
02:49But why is he there?
02:51How did he get there?
02:53That's the process that I always do.
02:54Because what we are in the present is a subtotal of what we were in the past, of what we've gone through.
03:02I've heard some interviews with actors, good actors in the U.S. where they say, hey, we're actors, we're supposed to pretend.
03:11Yeah, but you pretend, but you have a basis for the pretension.
03:15You just don't pretend.
03:16And you have to have some basis for that pretension so that it becomes a three-dimensional character.
03:23It becomes a real human being that they're seeing on stage or on the film, you know, and that is important to me.
03:31That is usually the process that I go through when I accept roles.
03:36So, how does a role that excites me, I've done a lot of different roles in my life.
03:50I've played doctors, priests, I've played rapists, I've played murderers.
03:56You know, I've played everything.
03:58I've played a woman abuser, you know, it's like, and what excites me is doing the role.
04:05That's what really excites me, you know, it's doing the work.
04:09The pre-production part, for instance, sometimes of filmmaking excites me, you know, it's like the pre-production part is when we did Rizal with Marilu Diaz Abaya.
04:18Before we started the film, Marilu had gave us almost like a crash course in history.
04:25She, we would have to have like classes with her.
04:31She gave us books to read on that time of the history of the Philippines and stuff like that, that Rizal time and stuff.
04:39She even made us learn to fence.
04:43Sabi ko, bakit kailangan Marilu, why do we need to fence?
04:46There's no scene in the script where we're fencing, right?
04:51So, sis, well, you know what?
04:54Sabi niya, Aime, I want you to do it because I want you to have that form.
04:59I want you to carry that form that they used to have.
05:02That would really excite me so that when we started shooting the film, you have become the character.
05:09We used to tell, we used to call, we used to have names for them, like the senator, the senador, we would call the senador.
05:21The congressman, we would call kang congressman.
05:24Okay.
05:25Si President Corey, we would call President Tita, you know.
05:29So, we had a name for all of this thing.
05:32So, one time, Manduling Morato, who was then the censor's chief, said,
05:37you cannot, you just have to stop using those words because you are disrespecting the positions of these people.
05:44These people have to be, they are, they are, they are a position of respect and you are respecting.
05:49At that time lang, there was this, there was this short, it's a trailer of a movie of Eddie Garcia and Bong Revilla,
05:56na pinapalabas sa TV, it was being shown on television.
06:00And, and one of the scenes was, you're like that and, and, and, and, and see, Eddie Garcia is going,
06:05sige, magkapit pita na tayo ng bayag.
06:09Yeah, this song TV, right?
06:10TV.
06:10So, when we were doing that now, so, again,
06:13nakatanggap po kami ng notice mula sa board of censors na hindi na daw pwedeng gamitin ng lechenador,
06:23ang kang congressman, ang President Tita.
06:26Pero pwede po namin gamitin ng salitang bayag.
06:32So, walang nagkawano naman si Mora to.
06:34So, these are, these are stuff that, you know, it was so much fun.
06:40It was really, it was, it was, it was, but it went on for three years, you know.
06:51Yeah, but that's, that's what it is.
06:53I mean, all of us are going there eventually, you know, at I mean, kaya na una-unahan.
06:56But all of a sudden, kasi this past month, biglang parang dagok talaga sa batok, you know,
07:00na sunod-sunod, si Pilita, si Nora, si Haji, si Ricky, you know,
07:06it's like parang pinaalala talaga, you know, and Romy Romulo,
07:11another guy who I worked with in the FPJ films who also died, you know.
07:15It's like, you wake up and you say, yeah, we're going there.
07:19We're all going there.
07:19So, like I said, I think, I think, in order for you to, to be able to accept all of these things is,
07:29is, one is to be kind, like I said, to others, you know what I mean?
07:33Think of others all the time, you know, be fair.
07:36Don't antagonize anybody too much, you know, just a little bit when you're on the right, you know.
07:40I mean, and yes, I appreciate the fact that my, I'm not immortal, you know,
07:49and there are people who have gone ahead of me, younger than me.
07:54So, sabi nga nila, nasa pre-departure area na ako, alam mo, some of us.
07:59But, whilst I'm still here, I am not giving up.
08:06Hindi po pwede yung, tama na.
08:10People ask me, pwede ka ba magre-retire?
08:15Hindi, I'm not going to retire.
08:16Why will I retire?
08:18You know, my, so long as I'm healthy, and I can say my lines, I can memorize, I can walk, I can talk, you know.
08:24I said, why will I stop working?
08:27It doesn't make sense.
08:29If you're a clerk in a bank, I can understand why you want, why you want to retire, but not, not the jobs that we have.
08:35The jobs that we have are not retireable.
08:37No, we're not, we're there until, until God says,
08:41This kind of job.