Paolo Montalban: Apollo in the flesh

"He is actually more good looking in person. That’s usually the first thing everyone says when they meet him," insists Vicor Adprom Manager Merle Mercado, making it sound almost like an apology. Paolo’s pictures often fall short of expectations: he is neither photogenic nor telegenic. The cameras don’t lie; they just don’t tell the complete truth.

Another truth is that though Paolo has license to be full of himself, he isn’t. Towering over six feet, Paolo doesn’t act bigger than the person in front of him. The sense of humor is disarming because he enjoys laughing at himself. When asked about sports, he cites two funny situations. One dates back to 1993 when he first came to the Philippines and played basketball with his all-Filipino cousins–and was beaten to a pulp despite the height advantage. Adding to the shame of the defeat was that Paolo was garbed in the latest sportswear while the cosuins were in their tsinelas.

Even cycling, the only real sport he was almost serious with, has its comic tale.

"What happened to cycling? Eventually, I stopped. I guess I got tired of shaving my legs and the rest of my body. Of course, since I was only 14, I barely had much hair on my body anyway. It was weird to be shaving my legs. The sheets! The sheets feel so weird on your skin. I couldn’t sleep for days because of it. The sensation of it being so smooth. Galing talaga! Makinis!" he laughs.

Paolo swears he loves women too much to be gay. Growing up in New Jersey and New York kept him from having a barkada. Sure he had friends but he was never the type to hang out.

"As a boy, I was really quiet. I had a very vivid imagination. I would make believe. It was like playing for me. Acting for me was a way to express myself and break out of my shell when I was in high school. I was a little bit more out going by then. In some ways, some people would even say I was a bit annoying," Paolo insists, not a bit embarrassed.

The singing came first, he reveals. "I come from a very musical family. Since the age of three, we were taking piano and violin lessons from my aunt. She also sings and so, naturally, we ended up singing too. And in church, we’d sing really loud," he laughs heartily. "And no one cared. My sister sings really well. She didn’t do it professionally though. Now she’s a dentist. She’s the responsible one because she’s the panganay. Yup, I’m the stereotypical bunso."

Paolo describes his Ate Rina in superlatives. She is a better singer, more attractive and smarter than him. Actually, she is everything Paolo has always wanted to be. Though he doesn’t think himself totally without talent, he says some of his achievements were more accidental than deserved.

A fine example is how as a toddler he ended up in first grade. Rina was placed two years ahead of her class because she was smart; Paolo walked into the wrong room on his first day of school, and stayed for all of nine days before anyone even noticed. Paolo looked just like the other boys–same height, same missing front teeth (he fell on his face at the age of two). The mistake took longer to surface also because he was very quiet.

Most of the students in the small exclusive school were kids of entertainers. The Montalban siblings went there only because it was conveniently attached to their apartment building. After the mix up was discovered, Paolo continued to attend first grade, since he could keep up anyway. He was not a nerd, but neither was he cool enough to hang out with popular kids. He was more of a "floater" until he discovered acting. What changed his life was landing the part of Oliver in a school play during his freshman year. Though he majored in Psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Paolo eventually chose the stage over medicine.

His career as a performer began a decade ago with the national tour of The Man of La Mancha. Then came memorable roles like Prince Charming (in Disney’s remake of Cinderella co-starring Brandy, Whoopi Goldberg, Whitney Houston and Jason Alexander) and Kung Lao (in the Mortal Kombat TV series). To be released soon is William Breuer’s The Great Raid where Paolo appears with Hollywood’s Benjamin Bratt and our own Cesar Montano.

There is more to come for sure. His actor’s reel, a three to four-minute recording of his past work, is currently being sent out on auditions. Paolo, who still loves cartoons (his favorites include Dexter’s Lab, Gundam Wing and Samurai X), is excited about the prospect of doing the voice over for the new animated series Super Monkey Robot Go. Even so, he will forever be remembered as Prince Charming.

"I thought Cinderella was the most unbelievable thing to happen to any guy," he gushes. "To a colored guy? Come on now!"

Though Cinderella became a dream project, Paolo admits the story didn’t really appeal to him when he was a boy: there was too much blood and gore to the fairy tales he was exposed to. Grimm’s Fairy Tales depicted the wicked step sisters‚ eyes being poked out by attacking birds. Paolo favored Bible stories over fairy tales.

"The Bible we had at home had a lot of cool pictures in it. And, let’s face it, all the stories of the Bible are the same stories being shown in movies. Star Wars? That’s the Bible. Hamlet? That’s the Bible. It’s all there. It’s just recycled stories. I liked stories with morals. I was into the King Solomon story about the two women with the baby. Then, there’s that one with Moses and Moses hits the rock and water comes out of the rock. And manna comes from heaven. I later found out from Discovery Channel that manna is actually a combination of bird saliva and pollen or something like that," Paolo says confidently.

Perhaps because he absorbs information like a sponge (favorite cable channels are Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network and History Channel), this Prince Charming has a mouthful to say about how princes are portrayed in fairy tales. "The great part about how Disney’s Cinderella story is written is that the prince also embarks on his own journey. The thing that I never liked about Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and others is that the prince only gets to come out in the end. At least at the end of Cinderella, the prince does something. He goes in search of Cinderella. And what about that pervert in Rapunzel? ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!’ I liked Rumpelstiltskin a lot. Now he was a total pervert!" he enthuses, his eyebrows raised and lowered maliciously. So, how did he play the ideal man when he was obviously attracted to such a sinister character? Surprisingly, Paolo disagrees that Prince Charming was perfect. "He was actually a bit rebellious and a bit stubborn and sometimes a little bit masungit. Like when he’s in the ball and he’s bored with all these girls. The fun part about that role was how do you make him like a real guy and not just a perfect guy.

"This is what I learned: The perfect guy does not exist and women actually do not want the perfect guy. I remember growing up when I used to read that in my sister’s Seventeen magazine until I graduated to Cosmo."

Reading my thoughts, he insists, "I do it for research!" and laughs. "I used to bug my sister about how I could make girls like me... Seventeen and Cosmo didn’t improve my private life but they gave me a better understanding of girls. Ironically and because of that, I have more female than male friends now. Look, I like being around women because they’re beautiful and they’re soft. They’re kinda like me–gentle and soft, you know. I’m not the rough kind of guy. I get my testosterone increases from performing. There was actually a study comparing the testosterone level of stage actors and football players. Stage actors actually had higher testosterone levels because of the adulation. I’m serious! Athletes have the potential of failing. Failing causes the testosterone level to drop."

By now it seems clear that Paolo enjoys spicing up conversations with bits of trivia. Research is also something that occupies much of his time. It has been fun but not easy living the life of a gypsy. It was so tough that he bought a book on packing to solve his luggage situation. He was with the Cinderella tour (starring Debbie Gibson and Eartha Kitt) for a year and a half. Then, between jobs, he found himself back in the Philippines for the second time.

In June of 2002, the Montalbans flew in to attend a family reunion. The self-confessed workaholic found himself on TV hosting abs-cbn’s Magandang Tanghali Bayan for a week. Later gma-7 asked him to host the Miss Asia Pacific pageant in November. Then he did sop’s Christmas special. Vicor took notice of his performance during the airing of that show. He was already spending the holidays with his folks in New Jersey when the company presented him with a recording offer.

"Sometimes I feel that my family is more supportive of my career in the Philippines than they were when I started out in the States. I don’t know why. Maybe because the only channel my mom watches is the Filipino Channel. She was talagang kilig when she watched me on MTB. She was really kilig," he stresses.

Technically, Paolo is a foreigner learning a second language. He was born in Manila but grew up in the US. The only time his parents spoke Filipino was when they were upset. To blend in, Paolo and his Ate Rina were encouraged to speak fluent English. It’s only now, after formal lessons, that he can utter a few phrases in Filipino.

"I know a lot about the culture," he argues. "Half of our extended family lives here and the other half in the States. I was told stories about the Philippines. I even know about the aswang."

Paolo is quick to admit his coño accent is difficult to unlearn. He had a dialect coach by his side to help him manage the three cuts in his album that are original Filipino songs: Kung Di Tayo, Paano Na?, Kung Alam Mo Lang and Ikaw. The other cuts in the album that took all of 17 days–from signing to pre- and post-production–to do include Broadway and movie songs.

Local audiences have warmed up to Paolo. Even Philippine media has been quite supportive, guesting him on shows and keeping him fully booked with interviews. By the time you read this, Paolo will no longer be in town, and doesn’t even know when he’ll be back.

"How am I like at home?" he asks, also wondering what it would feel like to return to his place in L.A. after months of being on the road. "Really relaxed almost to the point of being unsettling for me because I like being busy. There are times I do get lazy. I’m a part tourist. I love being in bed. I like lying on a thick mattress with four pillows. But I can’t do it for a long time. When I don’t have a schedule, I lose my mind."

This Prince Charming is a nice guy who is not a bum. Who says fairy tales are better than real life?