Mario O’Hara: A passion that refuses to die

Mario O’Hara has always been an artist. He’s the type of person for whom the craft has no price tag. Dangle a big, fat sum before him, and you think he’ll lunge at it the way ordinary mortals would?

Think again. Here is a man who turned down 12 movie offers to reprise his role as a call boy in Lino Brocka’s groundbreaking Tubog sa Ginto.

"The choice was between being true to my craft or prostituting myself. I felt accepting the offers will mean repeating my role. So I turned them all down," O’Hara explains.

Had he taken the path of least resistance, O’Hara knew he would have fallen into the typecasting trap, never to escape from it throughout his professional career. True, it could have given him a nice, big house in the city, but O’Hara did not budge.

His craft is more important than anything money can buy.

Today, years after he chose his craft over the lure of material things, O’Hara’s reputation as an actor’s director is intact.

Decades of working with the likes of Lolita Rodriguez, Eddie Garcia and Jay Ilagan (Tubog sa Ginto), Christopher de Leon (Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang) and Nora Aunor (Condemned), among others, have given O’Hara a knack for spotting talent when he sees one.

"A good actor must have an open heart. He must have no walls, no inhibitions," he begins.

This, he immediately saw in Katherine Luna, a newcomer cast as the title role in Babae sa Breakwater. Katherine may be untried and untested, but that does not mean she cannot give acting a try.

"I knew I found my lead actress after talking to Katherine during the auditions," the director says. True enough, Katherine’s easy smile reminds you of that Close-up ad where the model instantly attracts a horde of admirers when she flashes those pearly whites.

"I want to work with actors who have not developed any habits yet," O’Hara explains his choice of Katherine and her leading man, Kristofer King.

The acting newcomer sings hallelujahs for his director.

"Direk Mario knows how to mine your deepest emotions to convey a message. This way, he brings forth emotions you never thought you can express," says Kristofer.

The admiration is mutual. O’Hara is the first to reveal he doesn’t work with just any actor. Aside from an open heart, his performers must have two other qualities: sensitivity and intelligence.

These, he says, are what his co-actors, like Lolita, Nora, Christopher, Jay, and lately, Matet de Leon, have, in good measure.

Breakwater is a case in point. The movie’s selling point is not star appeal but something much deeper. It’s the director’s ability to motivate his actors to give a sterling performance.

He singles out one scene he is especially proud of: "The old Filipino song O, Ilaw, plays in the background. It’s a mellow ditty, soothing to the ears (yes, its slow, rhythmic strains can even lull you to sleep). But the visuals are anything but comforting. They are violent. It’s what Katherine’s character, as a little girl sees. It jars her so much life is never the same for her since."

That’s what happens when you’re raised in radio like O’Hara. A radio talent since 12, the former chemistry student of Adamson University knew background music inside out. Many were the days and nights when he cooked up all sorts of images to go with music he fancied on radio.

O’Hara played and replayed scenes in his fertile imagination. The movies in his mind were many, laden with messages and angst.

His favorite is Condemned, starring Nora Aunor and Gloria Romero in the ‘90s. It was in a class of its own, not only because of its cast, but because of the ideas that it brought forth.

While shooting the film, O’Hara saw people sleeping by the Manila Bay breakwaters. A lightbulb flashed in his mind. The place is a microcosm of the world – its ups and downs, and the colorful people who inhabit it. It could be the setting for a story throbbing with human pathos. So why not come up with a movie about the lives of people there?

Thus was the idea for Babae sa Breakwater born. O’Hara wrote the story about a man who leaves his hometown in Leyte during the heyday of armed vigilante conflicts after he (O’Hara) bumped into Arlene Aguas, a first-time producer who owns Entertainment Warehouse Inc.

O’Hara is confident his film will earn, thus proving his producer right in taking a risk in filmmaking at a time the industry is at an all-time low.

"It’s a musical tapestry of people," O’Hara proudly describes Breakwater. A film critic once compared it to Brocka’s Maynila, sa Kuko ng Liwanag – its stark realism staring at you in the eye.

O’Hara says, however, that his film, unlike Maynila, ends on a hopeful note. How it does this is something for the moviegoer to see.

The award-winning scriptwriter (1978 Metro Filmfest for Rubia Servios) has another surprise up his sleeve. He wants to do a modern remake of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere no less. He has also considered doing the classic Without Seeing the Dawn.

Thank goodness the trendsetting Mario O’Hara has not quelled that passion for his craft inside him. At a time when the industry needs all the help it can get, such devotion to films that command power and bolt-upright-attention is nothing short of heaven-sent.