Arnold shining brighter on stage

Last Feb. 19 was an important day for Arnold Reyes. The veteran TV, theater and film actor notched a career milestone when he won the 13th Gawad Tanglaw Presidential Jury Award for Excellence in Theater, TV and Film, an award recognizing an actor’s body of work across three platforms.

Given by a group of educators and students from institutions like Colegio de San Juan de Letran and the Perpetual Help System, the Gawad Tanglaw honors performers in different fields of media, including journalism, broadcasting and acting. The Presidential Jury Award, which is given every year, is the group’s equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement Award. Conferred annually, the award’s previous recipients have included Gina Alajar and director Joel Lamangan. According to Arnold, this year, they specifically picked a younger awardee to send out the message that even if you’re young, you can do great things if you only set your mind to it.

Arnold feels extremely honored to have won it because the award not only validated his work as an actor, but because it was given by a group of teachers. Arnold’s late mother Africa Reyes was also a teacher, so it was doubly significant for him. “Nakakatuwa, because my mom was a teacher (at Novaliches High School in Quezon City, where Arnold also studied). That’s why when I won and received the award, I said, ‘Malaking bagay po sa akin itong award na ito kasi ang nanay ko ay isa rin pong guro. And I’m dedicating this to all the teachers and students who voted for me.’ My No. 1 fan is my mom. So (that night), I felt like crying because na iniisip ko na sayang, di na nakita ng nanay ko, sigurado pa naman ako na siya ang unang magiging proud sa akin, lalo’t fellow teachers niya ang bumoto sa akin.”

The Gawad Tanglaw jurors considered Arnold’s performances in indie films like the Cinemalaya entries Kasal and Carlo Obispo’s Purok Siyete (Kasal, directed by Jay Altarejos, won Best Picture honors in last year’s festival), Isang Tag-Araw ni Twinkle (which was entered in the FDCP Film Festival and was directed by Gil Portes) and the gritty crime thriller Graceland, which had a successful commercial screening in the US, in television (he has been part of a number of Kapamilya shows, including Apoy sa Dagat which starred Piolo Pascual, Angelica Panganiban and Diether Ocampo) and in countless stage plays like Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah, Noli Me Tangere and Juego de Peligro.

Juego de Peligro is a Filipinized version of Dangerous Liaisons whose Hollywood counterpart starred Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Arnold was handpicked for the Malkovich role by director Tuxqs Rutaquio who said only that he was doing a play at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and couldn’t think of any other actor besides Arnold, to play the role. He said yes even if he was going into it blind and had no idea what the play or even the role was about. He signed on because he knew the director was good, and he was excited to work with the other actors, which included Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino and LJ Reyes.

“Sinabi ko, wow, I wanted to work with these actors. So I said yes right away,” says Arnold. When he finally got hold of a copy of the Hollywood version of Dangerous Liaisons and watched it, “Natakot ako, kasi ang galing ni John Malkovich. He did make a mark with the audienc. Then, I asked myself, “What else could I offer?”
Fortunately, the play they were about to do was a Filipinized version, so Arnold was able to adapt the character to local culture. That, he says, is the magic of theater and why he finds it so rewarding as a medium.

Actually, says Arnold, he finds all three — theater, film and TV — equally rewarding. And no matter how long he remains in the industry, he’ll always feel the same. Regardless of what he’s doing, where he’s doing it, and with whom, when you love something, and when it’s your passion, your calling, there’s just no other way to feel.