from INTERAKSYON Entertainment Blogsite:
Actor Mon Confiado offers trifecta of character roles in Cinema One Originals
Will the real Mon Confiado please stand up?
Mon is a consummate character actor who disappears into his every role. No matter how small or underwritten the part, he always gets into character, fleshing him out and becoming him in the process. He’s not interested in ever playing himself.
The Cinema One Originals film festival, which opens next week, will offer not just one or two but three more characters to add to his 19-year filmography. He plays the male lead in Ato Bautista’s “Palitan”, the main antagonist in “Baybayin”, and a cameo in Richard Somes’ “Mariposa (Sa Hawla ng Gabi)”.
Watch all three films, and you’ll be sure to get three different characters who don’t look anything like one another.
“Simula pa lang, alam ko nang hindi ako pang-bida. Kaya hindi ako katulad ng maraming artista na dahil celebrity sila, parang pare-pareho lang ang role na ginagampanan, at iisa ang hitsura,” he explains.
Mon is famous among his peers for going to extreme lengths to appear and sound different for each part. To play an Abu Sayyaf member in Brillante Mendoza’s “Captive”, for example, he learned Tausug from a native speaker and burned his skin to a crisp as he acquired a deep tan.
For his role in 1993′s “Dugo ng Panday”, he spent P5,000 — five times his talent fee — on a hair weave inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis’ look in “The Last of the Mohicans”.
His dream role? Something in the order of the chronic insomniac Christian Bale portrayed in “The Machinist”, in which the British actor lost a staggering 63 lbs.Or Robert De Niro’s Jake La Motta in “Raging Bull”, especially the older, bloated version of the boxer.
Mon is confident he can handle the massive weight loss or gain because he already does it in moderate measures for some of his roles. For “Palitan”, he shed 30 lbs. to play a fortysomething appliance and gadget storeowner in Raon who gets into a steamy love triangle with a 17-year-old couple (Mara Lopez and Alex Vincent Medina).
Of his three entries in Cinema One Originals, Mon is naturally most excited about “Palitan” for two reasons. One is obvious: this is one of the few lead roles that comes his way. Second, the movie happens to be a tribute to Peque Gallaga, whom he considers his mentor in showbiz.
If the festival itself pays tribute to the director with a screening of his 1982 debut film and masterpiece “Oro Plata Mata”, “Palitan” is a homage to Gallaga’s erotica classic “Scorpio Nights”.
Mon swears the sex scenes between him and Mara — the daughter of ’80s sexpot Maria Isabel Lopez — and those of Alex and Mara are just as torrid and explicit as the unforgettable romps that starred the trio of Orestes Ojeda, Anna Marie Gutierrez, and Daniel Fernando a generation ago.
Mon is also proud of his kontrabida role in “Baybayin”, where he portrays a military goon who protects an American businessman’s pearl farm in an island Palawan and terrorizes the indigenous people in the area.
In this, Aureus Solito’s follow-up to the acclaimed “Busong”, the actor has a rape scene with Alessandra de Rossi where he believes he lost his head for a minute during filming.
“Natakot nga ako baka na-offend si Alex (Alessandra’s nickname) kasi ganun talaga ako pag umaarte, spontaneous. I follow my instincts,” he says.
His role in “Mariposa” is only a cameo. But his depiction of a sadistic fake dentist in this macabre mystery from director Richard Somes is guaranteed to make its mark.
More scene-stealing character roles lie ahead in projects already in the can, such as “Dance of the Steel Bars” with Dingdong Dantes and American actor Patrick Bergin, “Saka-Saka” with E.J. Falcon and Baron Geisler, “Pirata” for director Jon Red, and “Rematado”, his second film with “Palitan” director Ato Bautista.
You can also catch Mon as Macario Sakay in “Supremo”, Richard Somes’ Bonifacio biopic for the upcoming Cinemanila Film Festival.
Asked to name that one movie role out of the over 300 he’s essayed since his acting debut in 1993 — not counting his numerous television credits — that which comes closest to his real-life personality, he draws a total blank.
Mon Confiado has never played Mon Confiado.
SSSIP's "A.W.E." ((ATTIC of WHITE ETHEREALS!)) 