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 26 years to forever: the multi-hyphenate on the love of his craft, his career thus far and how he's shaping the face of Filipino entertainment for the next generation.
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PHOTOGRAPHY Cenon At Mav
STYLING Loris Pe&ntilde;a

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 Piolo is early. He arrives at 12:53pm although our call time is 1pm. He jumps straight into makeup to get a head start on the shoot. When he steps into the set in nothing but high-waisted denims and a Bvlgari necklace, it&rsquo;s hard not to stare. After all, this is Piolo Pascual&nbsp;we&rsquo;re talking about &mdash; a veteran actor who has worked his way from a teen heartthrob to a genre-defining leading man for all seasons.
 Despite all of this, Piolo is kind and courteous. He repeats the names of those introduced to him on set and smiles generously. When we begin shooting, there is no request he does not oblige. There is no hint of hesitation even when the photographer asks him to tilt his chair back and stretch as far as he can. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t make actors like him anymore,&rdquo; sighs the makeup artist from where we sit.
 But Piolo wasn&rsquo;t always Piolo Pascual. Born Piolo Jose &ldquo;PJ&rdquo; Pascual on January 12, 1977, the youngest of six children was a kind of miracle baby. &ldquo;I was born with two teeth,&rdquo; Piolo says in a 2019 video interview. After growing up dabbling in theatre, Piolo got his first taste of show business in 1994 when he joined&nbsp;&ldquo;That&rsquo;s Entertainment&rdquo;, where the late German Moreno (affectionately known as &ldquo;Kuya Germs&rdquo;) in interviews described the young PJ as &ldquo;shy&rdquo;.
 When he turned 18, Piolo and his family migrated to the United States where he worked odd jobs such as an ER administrative clerk and a security guard at the Academy Awards. By the time he was 21, Piolo told his mum that he wanted to try acting again. Despite her opposition, Piolo returned to the Philippines where he was signed on to Star Magic by Johnny Manahan. The rest, as they say, is history.
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Today, 26 years later, Piolo &mdash; affectionately known as &ldquo;Papa P&rdquo; &mdash; is a household name for more than just films. He is a recording&nbsp;artiste, a host with a sense of humour and a commercial endorser for his Adonis-like physique. &ldquo;Mr. M (Johnny Manahan) and ABS taught me how to take on different roles and wear different hats,&rdquo; he explains.
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 This multidisciplinary approach has also led Piolo to the business side of entertainment. In 2009, he co-founded Spring Films alongside Joyce Bernal and Erickson Raymundo. Spring Films was the company behind the beloved Kimmy Dora films and sleeper hit &mdash; Sigrid Bernardo&rsquo;s Kita Kita, the highest-grossing Philippine independent film to date.
 These days, Piolo is busier than ever. The rise of global streaming and the return to cinemas has been an exciting time for him &mdash; both as an actor and a producer. Piolo starred in Netflix&rsquo;s first Filipino-produced Netflix Original Replacing Chef Chico and returned to Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) as the lead&nbsp;actor in Roderick Cabrido&rsquo;s Mallari&rdquo; before taking on a supporting role in Pepe Diokno&rsquo;s GomBurZa. They come a full 22 years after his first appearance at the festival, since Dekada 70 in 2002.
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&ldquo;[The festival] was eye-opening for me, a wake-up call,&rdquo; Piolo says. Last year&rsquo;s Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) was the highest-grossing festival on record, earning over P1.069 billion in box office sales. The festival also premiered abroad via the Manila International Film Festival held at the Director&rsquo;s Guild of America in Hollywood. &ldquo;Gauging from the results of the festivals that I attended &mdash; both here and in LA &mdash; I can see that there&rsquo;s so much room for growth. There&rsquo;s so much space for us to be able to move around and bring our content to a larger audience,&rdquo; Piolo says.
This is what has been keeping him motivated. An unwavering faith in Filipino talent and the belief that we can make it. &ldquo;We have the talent, we have the skills... Look at South Korea, look at Spain, all these emerging film markets. I want us to be like that. I want us to be at the Oscars. I want us to put our content out there and be proud of who and what we are as Filipinos,&rdquo; he says.
And where do you see yourself in all of this? &mdash; I ask.
&ldquo;A mover,&rdquo; Piolo declares. &ldquo;I want to be part of this big movement. We have a lot of titles on our slate and in the pipeline. We have partners from different parts of the world who want to help us. So I&rsquo;m sharing my name, presence and time to contribute to something bigger hopefully.&rdquo;
As an actor, he subscribes to a &ldquo;clean slate&rdquo; approach to every project. &ldquo;Whenever I come into a film, I always come in as a blank canvas,&rdquo; Piolo tells me. There&rsquo;s a palpable sincerity whenever he talks about his process. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s my passion,&rdquo; he says. A craft. Which might also be why he approaches it with such purity. &ldquo;No pretensions whatsoever. I like to inhabit the role,&rdquo; he adds. Piolo uses other metaphors too: You come in as a student, ready to learn. You get equipped with the right tools for the job. You use your script as a bible, to be read over and over again.

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 Piolo approaches each of his characters with palms wide open and ready to receive, just so he can give everything back tenfold. &ldquo;When I say yes to something, regardless of how much you pay&nbsp;me or how much time I need, I would go all in and all out, and I give it more than I can afford,&rdquo; he adds.
 It is exactly that, that set Piolo apart from his contemporaries and elevated him to the status of a prestige actor; an approach he took on for his award-winning performance of enigmatic activist Jules Bartolome in Chito Ro&ntilde;o&rsquo;s Dekada 70. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a role that still reverberates in me,&rdquo; Piolo says.
 Despite all that, there was a time when Piolo attempted to quit showbiz. In another interview, Piolo described himself as burnt out and entering into a midlife crisis. Fate, however, had other plans. &ldquo;No matter how you try to change the course of your life, if the Lord isn&rsquo;t done with you, you just got to abide,&rdquo; he tells me. So when post-pandemic opportunities arrived for Piolo, he said yes to everything and has never looked back since.
 &ldquo;I thought I was going to retire at 40. But I&rsquo;m nearing 50 and I don&rsquo;t see any signs of myself slowing down,&rdquo; Piolo says.
 This is also why Piolo uses another metaphor for his work: Marriage. A deep and binding commitment. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m married to my work,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always enjoyed the process and whenever I go on vacations, I always tell my family, &lsquo;I need to go back to acting, I need to act again,&rsquo;&rdquo; he says.
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 At this stage of his career, Piolo is looking for roles that challenge him. &ldquo;Whenever I get a script that I&rsquo;ve already done before, it&rsquo;s a no-no. When I say yes to a project, it has to be something that I haven&rsquo;t done or a character that I haven&rsquo;t portrayed. Because if it&rsquo;s just like a walk in the park, then nakakahiya. I don&rsquo;t want to be paid for something I&rsquo;ve already done before. I want it to be worth your while and at the same time, be challenging for me as an artist.&rdquo;
 It&rsquo;s the thrill of getting out of his comfort zone, Piolo says, which is akin to the feeling of responding to a higher calling. It&rsquo;s what made him say yes to Mallari, which required him to play three roles at once. It was also what made him say yes to his first musical called Ibarra.
 &ldquo;I had not done a musical [before], so I went on as a neophyte who didn&rsquo;t know what he was getting himself into. And its outcome was more than I expected. So, if I&rsquo;m able to do something like that and take myself out of the comfort and confines of my house, then I feel that I&rsquo;m doing something productive. I&rsquo;m doing something worthwhile,&rdquo; Piolo says.
 Named the Best Lead Actor in a Musical for Ibarra at the 36th Aliw Awards last December, Piolo described it as &ldquo;life-changing&rdquo;.&nbsp;&ldquo;It was a challenge. I had to drop everything I was doing for a whole month and check into a hotel just to imbibe the character,&rdquo; Piolo explains.
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 At this point, it&rsquo;s just in Piolo&rsquo;s nature to keep giving it his all for as long as he can, even if he doesn&rsquo;t have to. We notice it&rsquo;s the discernible thread in all of Piolo&rsquo;s undertakings, be it as an actor or a producer. There is evidently an insatiable desire to learn something new about the world and oneself by taking on challenges and pushing one&rsquo;s limits before discovering that you were capable of doing so many things all along.
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 &ldquo;As long as there&rsquo;s work, as long as there are still people, companies and magazines that believe in you, that want to feature you... I&rsquo;m in,&rdquo; Piolo concludes.
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B.zero1 necklace in white gold with pave diamonds on the spiral, B.zero1 pendant necklace in white gold Serpenti viper ring in white gold and Octo Roma watch BVLGARI Sweater and trousers BALMAIN

CREATIVE DIRECTION&nbsp;Loris Pe&ntilde;a
PRODUCERS Loris Pe&ntilde;a and Knelle Rosario
GROOMING&nbsp;Donald Magbojos
PRODUCTION DESIGN&nbsp;Justine Arcega Bumanlag
VIDEO DIRECTION&nbsp;Aijalonica Lei
PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSISTANT Rossman Hitosis and Francis Calaguas
VIDEO ASSISTANT Dianne Bernardo
STYLING ASSISTANT Teresita Gabat

The Charm of Piolo Pascual

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