Joanna Ampil: From stage to film and back

MANILA, Philippines - “When you enter this kind of work or this industry, you have to have the passion and the love for it for you to survive it.”

This is Joanna Ampil giving aspiring Filipino musical theater artists real talk on how to make it on West End. Joanna knows this well since she has been part of touring companies and playing roles such as Kim of Miss Saigon, Fantine and Eponine (Les Misérables) and Grizabella (Cats).

“When you enter this business, it is like throwing yourself in a den of lions,” she added. “There will be some cruel people along the way. But you just have to constantly rise above it. Make sure you focus on your objective. You set aside the negativity and gossip because it is full of that. Never stop learning. I’m still learning up to now. There are still a lot of things to learn.” From there, artists like Joanna, who aim for longevity, should constantly evolve as the work landscape changes so fast — and adapt.

The musical theater artist has crossed over to another medium to play Candida in the film Ang Larawan, along with Rachel Alejandro and Paulo Avelino as Paula and Tony Javier, respectively. The Loy Arcenas movie, about two sisters who are in a dilemma of either facing modernity or putting behind them their traditions, will hopefully be screened during the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) in December.

During a recent media call, Joanna said that everyone should watch the film since it is a work based on National Artist Nick Joaquin’s literary masterpiece A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, another National Artist Rolando Tinio’s libretto and soon-to-be National Artist Ryan Cayabyab’s score.

“There was adjustment,” said Joanna on acting for film. “Acting is common  sense. You just have to be truthful to it and to what you’re doing. Kahit na sinong tao whether or not experienced sila sa field na yun makikita nila kung fake ka. And that comes across.”

In musicals, the artists and the audience are present. They are part and parcel of the unfolding actions taking place in real time. They feed off each other’s energy.

In film, however, the camera becomes Joanna’s audience.

As far as creating the Ang Larawan character is concerned, Joanna said it began with a character sketch and she had to fill out what the script didn’t provide. Actually, she used “exactly the same process” in doing musicals like learning her character’s objective first before delivering lines.

Although the challenge, as she mentioned during the Q&A with print media, was to provide a scale-down performance, Joanna said that the film is still musical which is close to her heart. The actress reiterated that the core of every performance is “truth and honesty.”

“You have to be truthful to it kasi makikita sa mata, makikita sa movements,” she said. “People can also say that she’s planning her movements.”

From Ang Larawan’s Candida, Joanna plays Grizabella in the London production of Cats, which just finished its Middle East and Eastern Europe leg and is now on its Western Europe-Scandinavia tour. Grizabella is the Glamour Cat whose amazingly-designed costume will give that away, according to Joanna. The audience knows her social standing in the purr world right away.

“What I like about the character is even if I’m playing a cat, a lot of people can still relate to the story of Grizabella,” Joanna shared. “Kahit na pusa siya because of the song Memory, a lot of people like the story of the victim and the downtrodden. And Grizabella is that. I love Cats and I love the music.”

Aside from that, Joanna gets to dance and work with future superstars who are triple-threats.

“It’s a showcase. It is a proper showcase... You kinda level up,” she said. “We had to observe and I had to watch a lot of clips (about) cats like how they move and what happens to their bodies when they are shocked,” Joanna recalled.

As Grizabella, she acknowledged the wonders the costume does to her eight times a week but all she has to do is to “psyche yourself down to get into that mood.” So that the audience can identify what Grizabella is going through and who she is in the Andrew Lloyd Webber narrative.

In line with the musical, Joanna will release the signature song Memory as a single and Always Better from her previous musical The Bridges of Madison County. Sometime this month, Memory will be available on Spotify and iTunes.