WITH over 300 films and TV series to his credit, portraying different roles from extras, to villains and lead characters, Mon Confiado is in a never-ending mode to reinvent himself every role he plays.
“Do you know up to this day, I get excited when I get to shoot a movie? I can’t even sleep before the shooting day,” Mon said while in the set of a local short film where he plays a main role.
How did you start acting? This writer asked him.
Mon told us the story of his dad Angel Confiado, an actor from the 1950s to early 1990s. He used to visit his father in film sets as a kid.
“My father was 57 and my mom was 15 when they met,” Mon recalled. He was born three years after. They were kept secret at first as his dad had his first family. The only time they would be together was during film shoots.
“I never experienced regular childhood; I spent my childhood in shootings,” Mon remembered.
As a young man, Mon enrolled in an engineering course, it wasn’t his dream but rather it was a popular college course that time. “My cousins were taking engineering.”
Angel enrolled in a civil engineering course in Mapua and completed his studies though he never took the board since it wasn’t his passion and also he had become busy with the movies.
“I never thought of being an actor,” he said.
One of his projects was assembling an owner-type jeep and the vehicle was rented by Regal Films for a Chuck Perez action movie. In that movie, he had a cameo role.
“From there it continued,” Mon said.
His first regular film role was “The adventures of Leon and Kuting,” which was filmed in 1992 and directed by Peque Gallaga. Then he was casted Shake Rattle and Roll IV and in Bong Revilla’s “Ang Dugong Panday,” which are films directed by Peque Gallaga.
The film director’s team began also to direct movies of their own, they included Joey Reyes, Don Escudero, Jerry Sineneng, Jerome Pobocan and Erik Matti, being close to the team, they also casted Mon in their films.
Later in his career he developed his craft. Indulging in method acting, a technique where actors tries to achieve a sincere performance of their roles or a sincere portrayal of their characters.
“At first I was not aware of method acting. In more than 20 years, you grow as an actor, you develop.”
Mon said he never had any formal schooling as a filmmaker or as an actor he gets his inspirations from the films that he saw.
He idolizes Gary Oldman, Jared Leto and Christian Bale, actors which changes their appearances and physiques in movies they are casted.
Bale shed off 60 pounds of body weight for his film in “The Machinist,” Then got buff again to play Batman.
In the film “The Diplomat Hotel” directed by Chris Castillo, son of Celso Ad Castillo, Mon shed off 40 pounds for his role, he also spent overnight in the alleged haunted ruins of the hotel in Baguio City.
In the indie film “Sa Kabilang Dako,” Mon played a taong grasa role, and to get into character he spent overnight sleeping along the street without cash, trying to get by the night. He walked from his place in Libis Quezon City towards the shooting location in Sta. Cruz, Manila.
In the film “Heneral Luna” where he played General Emilio Aguinaldo, Mon spent the whole day in Aguinaldo Shrine trying to imbibe the character of the country’s first president. He also had his hair cut into General Aguinaldo’s trademark flat-top by an old barber who once serviced the old General in the 1950s and 60s.
In his film projects he bulked up to get beer belly, and then got rid of them to portray a hunky actor in another project.
He also takes pains to learn languages and their accents if he plays non-tagalog speaking characters. In the action teleserye “AngProbinsiyano” where he played the role of a Chinese criminal, he enrolled in a Chinese school to get his accent right.
“There is not much method actor in the country because it’s difficult. You risk your health and your life to get into that character,” Mon said.
“You must be very, very passionate in your craft if you want to be a method actor,” he added.
From mainstream films, Mon is now accepting independent movies and regional films.
“With indie films, I like the different attack and the vision of the directors. This is where I get to apply what I have experimented in my roles,” he said.
“Now I’m excited working for regional films. I discovered they really have beautiful stories in the regions like in Mindanao, Visayas and in Luzon,” Mon said of his new endeavor.
He was seen in regional feature-length films such as “Sabine,” which was shot in Davao City, “Daughters of the Three-tailed Banner” helmed by Teng Mangansakan and the Comval-shot “Iisa” directed by Chuck Gutierrez.
Aside from being an actor, Mon is also a businessman. He used to co-own several comedy bars named 22nd Street Comedy Bar, which had branches in Manila, Las Piñas, Antipolo and Cebu. However, after 20 years, Mon decided to close the comedy bars and venture into a new business, which is putting up backpacker hostels. He has two of these in Cebu and hopes to put up one in Davao.
During his three-day stay in Davao, he trained a group of potential for the Film Acting Workshop, a project of the Mindanao Film and Television Development Foundation Inc., the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts, the Film Development Council of the Philippines and the Philippine Information Agency in Davao Region.
“Aside from talent, you must have passion, dedication and attitude if you want to work in the movies,” Mon shared this message to newbie regional actors, which is actually his guiding principles taken from his more than two-decade long experience as an artist of Philippine cinema.