Actors who are not homophobic

There was a time when some Hollywood actors were kind of “homophobic” and they wouldn’t touch a gay role with the proverbial 10-foot pole. Only very few, to quote a song, rushed in where angels fear to tread.

Two of them were Marlon Brando who essayed the role of closeted-homosexual Major Weldon Penderton in Reflections in a Golden Eye (based on Carson McCullers’ novel) with Elizabeth Taylor as his earthy wife, and the other was Rod Steiger in a similar role in The Sergeant. Did their “derring-do” besmirch their macho image and ruin their career? Hardly!

In recent times, another Hollywood biggie who “dared” was Tom Hanks who, as an AIDS-afflicted lawyer in Philadelphia, even had a kissing scene with Antonio Banderas as his lover. Did it diminish the importance of the two as respected actors? A big no!

Oh, Mando is the first lead role for Alex (left) in a love triangle with Kokoy and Barbie Imperial between them

Not counting such certified machos as King of Comedy Dolphy who brilliantly delineated his sissy character since time immemorial (although he did an impressive serious turn as the “girlfriend” of a seaman, played by Phillip Salvador, in the Lino Brocka classic Ang Tatay Kong Nanay with Niño Muhlach as his surrogate son sired by Phillip’s character with his girlfriend played by Marissa Delgado) and Eddie Garcia playing loud-gay characters (Mga Paru-Parong Buking, etc.) cemented his versatility in Brocka’s Tubog sa Ginto as Lolita Rodriguez’s closet-queen husband having an affair with their driver (played by Mario O’Hara), many local actors seem to still be grappling with homophobia lest their careers suffer irreparable damage (an unfounded fear), the exceptions being Tom Rodriguez and Dennis Trillo, confirmed hetero, who were a delight as lovers in the GMA series My Husband’s Lover; Luis Manzano and John Lloyd Cruz, and Joem Bascon and Jake Cuenca, also confirmed heteros, in In My Life and Lihis (an indie by Joel Lamangan), respectively.

Oops, wait a minute. A new breed of local young actors have no qualms about “being branded” and they go ahead blithely swimming in once-(wrongly)-perceived murky waters, thanks to the BL (Boys Love) craze originated by Bangkok that has become oh-so-popular that the field is now inundated with BL tsunami, launching the careers of talented actors.

Kokoy has just starred in another BL series Gameboys.

One of them is Kokoy de Santos who created waves with his naked-as-day performance as a gay-bar dancer in the 2019 CineMalaya film F#*@BOIS (directed by Eduardo Roy Jr.), one scene of which shows him and his co-actor reluctantly making love au naturel in bed while being videotaped by a lecherous mayor played by Ricky Davao.

Did Kokoy have any regrets (pagsisisi) making a grand entrance into showbiz with his pants off?

“None at all,” said Kokoy (full name: Ronald Marquez de Santos Jr.), a graduate of Chef Logro’s Institute of Culinary & Kitchen Services, Inc., who is a pioneer in the local BL series, having just starred with Elijah Canlas in Gameboys, produced by Perci Intalan and Jun Lana’s IdeaFirst company. “Wala akong pinagsisihan. Ginusto ko lahat ng ginawa ko; I like everything that I have done and I consider them blessing kasi dun ako nakilala. Whatever role is given to me regardless of gender, game ako.”

Oh well, if Coco Martin did it with flying colors, starting in indies in which he kissed (and more!) his co-actors and even let it all hang in his discoverer Brillantes Mendoza’s critically-acclaimed indies Masahista and Serbis (with Mercedes Cabral), why can’t Kokoy or any aspiring newbie? Coco happens to be Kokoy’s idol.

Alex Diaz, a familiar name in the news because of that “airport incident” (more on that later on), felt the same way.

“I go into showbiz with an open heart and open mind,” said Alex.

The two are cast in Oh, Mando (now streaming on iWant TFC) which is touted as a “coming-out, coming-of-age tale" about Mando (Kokoy), a hopeless romantic and charming college boy who has long suppressed his attraction to boys and who experiences love at first sight when he meets Barry (Alex), a handsome out-and-proud gay basketball jock. The love triangle involves Barbie Imperial as the liberated girl in a relationship with Kokoy's character Mando. Oh, Mando is directed by Roy (aside from F#@BOIS, his other works are Pamilya Ordinaryo, Bahay Bata, Quick Change and Lola Igna.)

In a magazine interview, Alex (full name: Alexander James Diaz McDermott) admitted that he’s bisexual and comfortable with it. He was born to a Filipina mother and a conservative Scottish-Irish father in Angeles, City, Pampanga. When he was two years old, he and his family migrated to Canada where they lived in a big neighborhood. He has eight half-brothers and a half-sister from both his parents. The family moved back to the Philippines when Alex was 12 and he studied in De La Salle Canlubang (for high school) and took up Marketing (for two years) at Enderun Colleges. He plays football and volleyball. A contract star of Dreamscape, Alex has done a few projects, with Oh, Mando as his first lead role.

Early last year, Alex’s name cropped up in an airport incident where actor Tony Labrusca was accused of being “disrespectful” toward an immigration official upon arrival from Canada but he has since apologized for “letting my emotions get the better of me.” Alex was with Tony on the flight.

Asked what his status with Tony is, Alex said, “Oh my gosh, he’s a great friend of mine even before that scandal. We are both from Canada, he from Vancouver and me from Calgary,” adding, “you know, I came out a better person because of that incident. Because of that, I think I sort of became a hero to people who are like myself in coming out as what I really am. I wasn’t really coming to the Philippines but my manager informed me that I had a project.”

Instead of describing that incident as controversial and scandalous, Alex would rather call it “colorful.”

“After it was resolved, I felt more put together. Now I know what I want to do with my life because a lot of things were going on inside me. For a long time, I was struggling with the thought of being in showbiz. I can relate to my role in Oh, Mando because like my character Barry, I’ve gone through the same feelings in real life.”

For Kokoy, being daring in films is just a job, happy that his family is comfortable with it.

And what about his girlfriend?

Laughed Kokoy, “Sa ngayon, tapos muna ako sa girls,” and addressing Alex during the Zoom interview, added, “kami muna ni Alex.” And then laughed some more.

The film was shot before the pandemic (no social distancing protocol yet) so Kokoy and Alex were able to do physically intimate scenes.

Asked to elaborate, the two laughed and begged off, admitting only that during the editing they were told that the production people were, ehem, “titillated” by the love scenes.

“They were straight,” said Alex, referring to the editors. “Pero habang nag-e-edit tilian daw nang tilian. So doon pa lang, you can gauge how sexy the scenes are.”

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos, visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on Instagram @therealrickylo.)