This is exactly what former Seiko stud Gardo Versoza is doing. At 32, Gardo rightly realizes the hunk roles are better left to the likes of Diether Ocampo and Carlos Agassi.
Gardo, who has been dubbed as the Brown Adonis, is happy and content playing a bang-bang kind of role as a prisoner released from jail with fellow inmate Kier Legaspi, in Regal Film’s Aagos ang Dugo.
He can’t avoid tender scenes – the kind people have come to expect from action films. But when Gardo kisses Isabel Granada (who plays the kidnap victim) in the film, it is not to disrobe her, or engage in sizzling scenes with her. It is just to add a romantic flavor to the otherwise hard action film.
"I’m grateful for the bold films I made. I know that if it hadn’t been for them, people will not notice me," Gardo muses.
But he’s over the butt-showing stage of his Machete 2 (where he played a statue that comes to life at night) days now.
"Moviegoers are much more discerning now. They know when they’re being taken for a ride. I don’t want sex to be the main selling point of my movie. I don’t want it to be seen as something where the main come-on is the chance to see this or that part of my body when it’s not," asserts Gardo.
Never mind if the offers are not as many as before. Gardo realizes it’s not right to break the level of respectability he has worked so hard for in such prestige projects as Mario O’Hara’s Rizal, where he played the national hero, and Ang Lalake sa Buhay ni Selya, which cast him as title roler Rosanna Roces’ lover.
"I think I was able to inject respectability to that role, however sexy it came out to be," Gardo says.
These projects are the reasons why Gardo kissed the bold genre goodbye, for good. He would rather stick to TV appearances, like those in GMA 7’s afternoon series Biglang Sibol, which keeps him busy with taping once or twice a week (Gardo plays Lyka Ugarte’s husband).
One movie role Gardo is keenly interested in though, is that of a priest in a Via Veloso co-starrer.
"It’s interesting because I haven’t played a priest before," explains Gardo.
He has turned down an offer to play a gay who dies of AIDS in a Metro Filmfest entry, because it involves nudity.
Gardo’s goodbye-to-bold policy has kept him away from living in Easy Street. But Gardo is willing to adjust, with a lot of help from his pet animals, that is. With his 10-year-old love child (by Gandi Villareal, a non-showbiz girl now living in Los Angeles) oceans away from him, Gardo goes home to a place where only his mom and four pets keep him company.
"Animals don’t run away from you," reveals the lovelorn Gardo, who swears to being celibate for years now.
He has four dogs – one Great Dane, one pit bull terrier and two mongrels, all named after people with power. The Great Dane is called Congressman; the Pit Bull, Governor, and the mongrels, General.
Living peacefully with them – or so Gardo says – is Duke, the Persian cat.
They keep Gardo occupied, especially now that offers are scarce because of the current slump in the movie industry.
Still, Gardo finds reasons to smile. Now that he is no longer identified with a single film outfit, he is freer to speak his mind. He can tell reporters how he feels, and why. That freedom to be himself, Gardo says, is as priceless as a once-in-a-lifetime role in a movie dream he’ll give his right arm to make.