Eric Fructuoso loves playing bad guys

Former teen idol Eric Fructuoso enjoyed playing antagonistic roles in acting projects and he believed that portraying such characters gave him “staying power” in showbiz.

Celebrating his 30 years in the entertainment industry, the former member of Gwapings said he’s “very thankful and very grateful” for all the opportunities he had been given in his profession.

When asked if a Gwapings reunion would happen anytime soon, he said, “Hindi ko pa alam. Wala pa namang plano.”

It’s been decades since Eric first shot to fame via the ‘90s teen boy group Gwapings, whose other members were Mark Anthony Fernandez and Jomari Yllana. Jao Mapa later joined the group.

On having career longevity, Eric remarked in a recent virtual call, “I always want to play the bad guy in my acting roles. Yun at yun lang. So maybe because of that, medyo nagawa naman natin yung trabaho natin ng tama so maybe they think of me when it comes to those kind of roles,” and quipped, “Maybe besides me being cute, joke lang.”

Speaking of kontrabida roles, the 45-year-old actor-entrepreneur plays a corrupt cop and one of the villains in the primetime series Mars Ravelo’s Darna. He plays the Super Soldier Arthur Pineda, who will try to bring down Narda/Darna (played by Jane de Leon) with a superpower that can control inanimate objects.

Darna airs weeknights at 8 p.m. on Kapamilya Channel, Kapamilya Online Live, CineMo, A2Z, and TV5. The ABS-CBN series produced by JRB Creative Production is also available on iWantTFC, and TFC.

He is aware of how his role is being dubbed as one of the most-hated characters in the series.

“Pineda is really annoying,” he admitted. “Iba yung ugali tapos nung nagsimula maging extra si Pineda nung hindi pa naka-costume, I saw the feedback that they enjoyed watching my character because Pineda’s quips were funny. After that, we’ll see what will happen next.

“But outside ‘pag nakikita ko natutuwa sila dahil makulit lang, hindi naman talaga sila naiinis or anything. Nakakatakot lang itsura ko (laughs).”

Although he had done villain roles in the past (as Gregorio “Gregor” Baltazar in 24/7 and as Alvin Mangubat in Kadenang Ginto), Mars Ravelo’s Darna is the first show where he got to wear an all-white contact lens and a heavy costume, which weighs around 10 kilos.

Despite “feeling uncomfortable” due to the full costume, Eric praised their awesome ensemble anyway.

“Everything is perfect,” he said. “Maganda talaga. When we saw each other’s costumes, each one of us went, ‘Wow! Galing nito ah.’ Kinikilabutan ka sa ganda. When we took photos, we were excited to post (our costume) but we couldn’t reveal it at that time.”

“Basta medyo OK naman yung costume, it’s comfortable. Although it does feel a bit uncomfortable the longer you wear it. Kahit ano naman siguro suotin mo uncomfortable eh but when you are on set, we just enjoy every scene. It didn’t come to a point na kailangan yung 100-percent seryosohin talaga yung dapat gagawin,” he shared.

“We were just having fun,” Eric stated and added that he and his co-actors have “natural” chemistry on set. “We were just enjoying ourselves.” In fact, he considered Darna as one of the shows he had most fun doing in his entire career as an actor.

Eric revealed that some of Pineda’s scenes were actually not part of the script. They would do the dialogue on the spot because it had to be funny.

“Besides, comedy shouldn’t be rehearsed. It has to come out naturally. It should be spontaneous. We were just happy. If you were there, you would also enjoy the taping (as much as we did),” he said.

“Actually, this is one of the shows na pinakamasayang nagawa ko sa buong career ko because I really bonded with my co-actors and we became really close. As in super close, I became more excited working than going home. It was a very fun experience plus the show was fun. There were even times we didn’t want to work, we just wanted to talk to each other,” he said laughingly.

The rest of the super villains, collectively dubbed as Heneral Borgo’s (Richard Quan) “super soldiers,” are Noah (Paolo Gumabao), Andre (Young JV), Mayor Zaldy (Simon Ibarra), Maisha (Dawn Chang), Sigfried (Joshua Colet), Ishna (Kim Rodriguez) and (Ali)Mark Manicad.