Mon looks for the good in darkest places

MANILA, Philippines - Mon Confiado acts the way he thinks. But shouldn’t everybody?

Not really. After all, not everybody shows what’s going on in their mind. Not all actors express their thoughts in ways magnified on screen.

Mon belongs to the group whose thoughts and actions match completely. That’s how he managed to make over 300 films in his 20-year showbiz career.

He believes everyone is good at heart. That’s why his villain roles are sympathetic; his personal life, as peaceful as can be.

 “I’ve never figured in a fight since I was 11,” the veteran character actor said after the presscon of the indie film Ang Guro Kong ‘Di Marunong Magbasa, where he plays main villain Commander Ahmid.

That’s because Mon believes that everyone — no matter how evil — is good at heart. It’s just that people and situations lead them astray.

It has its downside. Mon admits his trusting self has given him huge losses — financially, emotionally, etc. But he shrugs them off, convinced that the other person has a reason for betraying his trust.

“Perhaps the other guy needs that mobile phone. So he stole one. I automatically think of an explanation when a person sins.”

This outlook drives Mon to take villain roles, not as black and white characters, but as exciting studies of flawed persons in varying shades of gray.

Mon plans to talk to writer-director Perry Escaño of the upcoming indie Ang Guro Kong ‘Di Marunong Magbasa (My Teacher Who Doesn’t Know How to Read) and discuss his character Commander Ahmid.

Yes, the guy is evil.  But he has a reason for recruiting boys and turning them into child warriors who fire at military men in a small, far-flung barrio where the film is set.

“He’s not evil at heart,” Mon explains. “Soldiers gunned down his child, so he’s angry at the government, at the world.”

Mon isn’t condoning his character’s behavior. In fact, he admits  Commander Ahmid might be looking at things wrongly. But Mon wants to show that the guy’s actions aren’t arbitrary. He wasn’t born evil. His hatred for the government goes back a long way. This way, the character has more depth.

The FAMAS Best Supporting Actor (for Faces of Love in 2008) goes as far as saying the child warriors (played by Miggs Cuaderno, Micko Laurente, Marc Justine Alvarez and Bon Lentejas) will grow up to become rebels themselves because that’s the only way of life they know.

Mon sees these future outcasts as gray characters who become who they are because they learned how to handle guns when others their age were taking classroom lessons.

Mon can’t think this way had he read only a sequence of the script, the way some lead actors do. He spent three hours reading the entire script.

It’s not the first time the actor-businessman went out of his way for work. “I will continue to do whether or not I get paid.”

He slept on the grimy side streets of Recto Ave., Manila, when he played a taong grasa.

Months before he played Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo in the acclaimed film Heneral Luna (with John Arcilla in the title role), Mon asked a barber who can give him his character’s flat top hairstyle.  He frequented Aguinaldo’s Cavite mansion for a month to imbibe the First Philippine President’s aristocratic ways.

Mon flew to the US to shoot the indie Stateside, without a single centavo in his pocket because he wanted to feel how it is to be penniless in Uncle Sam’s country.

Mon makes it a point to go to veteran prosthetics artist Cecille Baun’s studio to invest in musts of the trade like false teeth, long locks and others.

He did the rounds of stores to get the make-up foundation that turned his black hair to silver for the Guro pictorial.

And yet, Mon wants more. He plans to study acting at the New York Film Academy — if his schedule allows him to. As it is, he’s busy shooting more indies. Mon will reprise his Aguinaldo role in the biopics of Gregorio del Pilar and former President Manuel Luis Quezon.

Now, you need not wonder why Mon’s investments as a serious character actor are paying off — handsomely.