A new racket for me

"Racket" in the English language means "a noisy disturbance" or "an illegal activity done to make money." In English slang, it basically means a business or occupation.

In the entertainment world, if you say "racket," it means a very good thing – a sideline besides what you normally do in the business.

If an actor or singer goes on provincial tours (usually very profitable), then that is considered a showbiz racket.

Among television hosts, the usual rackets are doing corporate shows that often pay big money.

In my case, I’ve had the tough luck of doing mostly charity shows where I end up waiving my talent fee as host. No, I’m not complaining because doing that is very fulfilling. Believe me, you really feel good after that — knowing that you’ve helped other people in your own little way.

Starting last year, however, I discovered a new racket: Acting in soaps — believe it or not. No, it‘s not big money for me because I’m often just required to do two scenes or three at the most. And in most TV programs, you don’t really get a lot unless you are the star of the show. And I doubt very much if there‘s a TV network that would be crazy enough to come up with a soap opera with me as the lead star. As Bernadette Sembrano would say in her weekly show, "Wish ko lang!"

The first time I appeared as guest in a soap opera was after Holy Week of 2002. I distinctly remember that because I had to cut short my Iloilo vacation that time to be on the set Easter Tuesday of this soap opera (the title of which I no longer remember) because, well, the titles of most soap operas are so convoluted anyway, you end up mixing them all up.

But I’ve appeared in three or four soaps in the past and I do remember doing scenes with Gary Valenciano, Angelika de la Cruz, Ruffa Gutierrez, STAR Lifestyle columnist Rissa Samson and Toni Gonzaga. Usually, I play myself – a talk show host, but what else? – but there was a time that I insisted on changing my name to Conan after my favorite talk show host, that New England guy with beady eyes, Conan O’Brien.

But even if I basically just play myself, there’s still acting required – well, ham acting in my case – because you have to follow dialogues in a script... unlike in real live talk shows where anything goes.

In one soap I did last summer, for instance, I had to embarrass Toni Gonzaga in front of the camera (as required by the script) – which is so different from what happens in real life in Startalk because there, I‘m the one who goes through embarrassing moments most of the time because of my on-cam booboos which I admit are quite many.

One thing I also noticed about soap operas is that the shooting schedule always changes. There was one instance when my call time was first set at 5 p.m., which later was changed to 8 p.m., then 11. By the time the camera started grinding, it was 1 a.m. of the next day.

And by the time you get to the set, they’ve completely changed the script and so, you throw away the dialogues you‘ve so painstakingly memorized the previous night and start with new ones – which you have to learn on the spot.

But you can’t complain – and you shouldn’t because that’s how movies and television operates. It‘s not that people are unprofessional in this field.

Everything is really just unpredictable – especially since all soap operas are shot on location. Like if you have to do a street scene, one big problem there that may be difficult to control would be the crowd – and the traffic.

So far, in all the GMA 7 soap operas I’ve appeared in, I’ve had nothing to complain about. I‘ve been very happy with them and I hope the feeling is mutual. Sure, there were delays and last-minute changes, but these were unavoidable and part of the reality of TV work.

The other week, I again got the chance to appear in another soap and I felt ecstatic doing it because it was my favorite soap opera – Narito ang Puso Ko. I’ve already written about this more than a month ago in this column and gave it a glowing review because of its excellent production values and superior performances of the lead stars.

When Narito’s executive producer, Angie Castrense, thus invited me to appear as guest in the show, I said yes right away without even bothering to check my schedule.

I also got excited because I thought it would give me a chance to finally work with the Rosa Rosal and Eddie Garcia, two legendary greats in the business. And with Rosa Rosal, it was more on a personal level because — as I‘ve always written here – we’re like mother and son. (Don’t you see the mestizo resemblance? He-he-he!)

Unfortunately, I got a little disappointed when I found out that I wasn’t working with either Tita Rose or Tito Eddie after all. But it was okay because I was going to work with my three favorite young people anyway: Jolina Magdangal, James Blanco and Karen de los Reyes.

I’ve worked with Jolina before when we did a one-day endorsement for Jazz Page – you know, in those ancient days of paging before texting became the national pastime in this country. Jolina is a wonderful girl and has always been very respectful especially to people in the business older than she is – particularly to me (ouch!). Her father, Mr. Jun Magdangal, is my unofficial feng shui consultant.

In the case of James Blanco, I’ve always thought of him as a very nice young man with excellent manners just like Jolina. Every time I bump into him, he even gives me tips on where to buy the best shirts that he feels would be right for me. He’s a wonderful and thoughtful boy – really.

Karen de los Reyes (the granddaughter of the lolo in the McDonald’s ad) I’ve only met once before. But it was a memorable meeting – an interview actually where she cried her eyes out over some now forgotten issue. Basically, I think she’s misunderstood and on the set of Narito ang Puso Ko. I got to know her better and I thought she was quite nice.

Since I like the people I was going to work with, I knew that working on this soap opera was going to be a joy for me – until I opened the script and saw the long dialogues and the tongue-twisting lines that were all assigned to me. Given my acting talent (or utter lack of it), there was a possibility that Narito ang Puso would be mistaken for either Idol Ko si Kap or Daboy en Da Girl or any of the GMA 7 comedies. Or worse, an episode of the horror series Kakakaba Ka Ba?

(To be concluded)