The Toughest Director I Ever Had (and Why I’m Grateful)

I’ve been performing since 1998. Spain, China, Holland, Portugal, and the Philippines since 2011. People sometimes ask me what the biggest lesson of all those years is.

Shouting in rehearsal

My answer always takes me back to one rehearsal room, and one director: Baby Barredo, founder of Repertory Philippines. My Tita Baby.

When I moved to the Philippines, I joined her theater company and did my first musical here, Seussical. I was learning everything again: the local dynamics, the way productions work, how hard it really is to make a living from theater here.

Then came the only play she ever directed me in: Guadalupe the musical.

Let me be honest. It was tough. Very tough.

She shouted at me during rehearsals. She insulted me in front of the cast. Then after rehearsal I would help her into the car and we would go for dinner as a family, like nothing happened.

She was harder on blood relatives on purpose. She didn’t want anyone to think she was favoring us. And she wanted to make us better actors.

I wanted to quit. I’m not ashamed to say it.

99% perspiration

Tita Baby used to say theater is 99% perspiration and only 1% inspiration. I heard it so many times I could recite it in my sleep. During Guadalupe I finally understood it.

So I stopped focusing on how I felt in the room. I focused on the work.

Every single day I worked on my character. Not only during rehearsal. At home, in the car, before sleeping. Small things. A look, a pause, the way a line lands.

Here’s the part nobody tells you. When the director is not around, a lot of people suddenly have opinions about your role. Other actors, production, dancers. Maybe ten different people told me ten different things to do with my character while she was away.

I closed my ears.

Not out of arrogance. I had a path that the director and I had started building together, and I kept walking it. Changing direction every time someone gives a suggestion is how you end up with a character that belongs to nobody.

It paid off

Guadalupe became the best performance of my life. Among other plays, I was nominated as Performer of the Decade in the Philippines by BroadwayWorld, next to big names I grew up admiring.

I’m not telling you this to show off. I’m telling you because I almost quit before it happened.

What I learned

When I look back, the lesson is not “find a nice director.” Nice is great. But nice is not what made me better.

Here is what I took from that rehearsal room, and what I still use on every set today:

1. Separate the person from the work. Tita Baby could be hard in rehearsal and loving at dinner. Both were real. Once I understood that, the shouting stopped feeling personal. It was about the scene.

2. Do the work daily, even when nobody is watching. Talent gets you into the room. Daily work is what keeps you there. Most of the progress on that character happened when nobody was looking.

3. Choose your voices. Listen to your director. Respect your fellow actors. But don’t rebuild your character every time someone has a new idea. Commit to a direction and go deep.

4. Discomfort is often the price of growth. I wanted to quit because it hurt. Looking back, the pain was the exact thing pushing me past where I was comfortable.

5. Gratitude can come later. In the moment, I was not grateful. Today I am. I’m an actor in the Philippines because of her. I used to watch her plays and rehearsals as a kid, and that is where it started.

Why I’m sharing this now

Since then I’ve done dozens of films, series and stage plays. GomBurZa, Heneral Luna, He’s Into Her, Can’t Buy Me Love, Bad Genius, Miong, Marco Polo at the CCP. Every one of those projects had hard days.

What got me through was what I learned in Guadalupe: show up, do the work, trust the path, and don’t take the hard days personally.

If you’re an actor, a singer, or honestly anyone working on something difficult right now, and someone is pushing you harder than feels fair, ask yourself one question.

Are they trying to break you, or are they trying to make you better?

Sometimes the answer is the first one, and then you walk away. But sometimes it’s the second, and that might be the most valuable season of your career.

I wrote more about Tita Baby here: 1st death anniversary of director Baby Barredo. You can see my full list of roles on my Work History page, and if you want to know more about me, start with About.

Thank you, Tita Baby.