Dingdong gets the thrill ride of his career

If he were a TV program, he’d be a family sitcom. If he were a movie, he’d be as GP-rated as a Walt Disney production.

Dingdong Dantes is so wholesome he’s the type you’d like to bring home to Mama, anytime. He never figured in fistfight, gotten somebody pregnant or hang around in places of ill repute. He does his school homework (ask Boots Anson-Roa, his teacher at the Ateneo, where he’s taking up Interdisciplinary Studies).

What gives? It helps a lot that the GMA talent has his feet firmly planted on the ground.

"All these," he surveys the streamer proclaiming in big, bold letters that he’s one of the lead stars of the Metro filmfest entry Malikmata, "is temporary." By "these," he means the hosting stints (the recently-concluded Miss Asia-Pacific pageant and the ongoing reality-based star search on primetime, Starstruck), his job as director of the weekly horror-fantasy series Kakabakaba Adventures and the adulation that goes with it.

No wonder he makes hay while the proverbial sun shines. Never mind if he hardly has time for anything else (except girlfriend Antoinette Taus). Dingdong simply hates to be idle. It’s written all over him. He busies himself with his cellphone during presscon lulls and checks it now and then for messages or missed calls. "I never back out from a challenge," the 23-year-old Dingdong who started out in showbiz five years back says.

Except of course, when the challenge calls for him to junk loyalties.

Dingdong wears he won’t bite if ABS-CBN dangles an offer, however juicy, before him. He vows his heart totally belongs to the network that gambled on him when he was still just an unknown in showbiz

GMA is rewarding him generously. Dingdong was management’s unanimous choice as director for Kakabakaba Adventures (Saturdays, 9:30 p.m.) Here is someone young enough who can relate to the equally juvenile cast in the series on the supernatural. And they were right. On the set, Dingdong is cool, never blowing his top. He also gives respect where it’s due, handling the more senior stars with kid’s gloves.

The responsibility extends to his events company with Gabby Eigenmann. The two put up Duo Entertainment a little more than a year ago.

"Showbiz is not forever," Dingdong repeats an oft-quoted line in the industry. "So I must have a fallback position."

That fallback position with Gabby is doing well, so far. They have put up Regine Velasquez’s concert at Shangri-La Hotel and the Sex Bomb Girls’ show at Mandarin Hotel. Things are expected to pick up some more, now that the holiday season is approaching.

The coming holidays are doubly exciting for him because he’ll join the Metro Filmfest for the first time. As Alvin, his character in Malikmata, Canary Films’ official entry, Dingdong grapples with supernatural forces as he helps his co-worker (the clairvoyant Sara, played by Rica Peralejo) trace a murdered old woman’s stepson (played by Marvin Agustin).

Dingdong is no stranger to horror flicks. He was cast in Regal Films’ Shake, Rattle and Roll V, his first shot at the thriller genrre.

And while his only real-life brush with the supernatural comes only in his dreams, Dingdong is happy at the chance to learn a tip or two from Malikmata director Joey Javier Reyes.

"Direk Joey motivates us through music. He brings CDs to set us in the mood for a scene," reports Dingdong.

Is he applying this technique on his set over at the GMA studio?

"I’m just taking note of it. You see, Kakabakaba Adventures. relies on live sound," he answers.

Those pretty-boy looks are usually a blessing. But Dingdong knows that while they don’t bring in a curse, they can lead to frustration.

For instance, Dingdong must work twice harder than the actor beside him when he plays contravida.

"I must grow a beard, darken my skin, etc.," Dingdong reveals.

But no problem. He’s willing to trade those glamor looks for that scum-of-the-earth image if he has to. It’s a challenge someone on the lookout for good, meaty roles like Dingdong will give his right hand for. Never mind if he sacrifices his boy-next-door image in the process.

There’s only one thing he’ll turn down: a bold movie. And it matters not that he has the body for it. No way will he shift from wholesome to sexy.

"That’s why it’s good I have no offers to go bold," Dingdong smiles. You could almost hear the sigh of relief in his voice.

That option out of the way, Dingdong goes on his merry way, meeting every challenge head-on, surprising even himself at how far it can take him in his search for the thrill of his career.