Ejay gets longtime wish

MANILA, Philippines - Ejay Falcon got to fulfill his wish of doing an action movie via Toto Natividad’s Saka Saka, one of the entries to the New Wave category of the upcoming Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).  

The 24-year-old actor is such an action movie fan that he can right off the bat cite specific scenes and dialogues from action films of the ’80s and ‘90s, the so-called glory days of the genre in Philippine cinema.

Among his favorite action stars are Fernando Poe Jr. and Robin Padilla, although the action star he looks up to the most is Cesar Montano. In fact, Ejay’s dream role is something like Cesar’s tough-talking character in the Alyas Waway movie (done some 20 years ago), as he thinks it will be an opportunity to “change image” and will be a departure from his previous roles.

Incidentally, direk Toto megged many of Cesar’s action films and it looks like Ejay is being groomed for more actioners as he comes off the successful ABS-CBN action-drama series Dugong Buhay, which was also directed by Toto who hopes that the genre will make a full comeback after its long absence.

“He’s my first choice for the movie. I’ve seen his potential since PBB,” said direk Toto, referring to the Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition of 2008 which Ejay won and became his ticket to showbiz.

Curiously, Ejay is being linked to Cesar’s estranged wife Sunshine who played Ejay’s mother (although she’s only 12 years his senior) in Dugong Buhay. He expressed surprise and appeared weirded out by the issue, saying, “She treats me like a son, she plays my mother in Dugong Buhay and up to know, that’s really how I see her.” 

Ejay maintains that he’s single despite being linked to other past co-stars. Saying that his type of girl is “conservative, morena and knows how to sing,” he also said that there’s no telling if he’ll get a love life in the next months or so, as things like that can’t be planned, in the same way, he didn’t plan on entering showbiz.

After PBB, he said he nearly quit showbiz. “Unang presscon pa lang, di ako makapagsalita,” he said recalling how stumped he was after being immediately asked to address issues, but direk Laurenti Dyogi who’s also the man behind PBB encouraged and told him, “that it’s just the start.”

Seems like Ejay has fully embraced the acting life and he’s being rewarded for it, with projects coming one after another. He has three movies just this end quarter, Call Center Girl, Saka Saka and Girl Boy Bakla Tomboy.

In Saka Saka, he plays a farmer who moonlights as a hired assassin in the film that touches patronage politics. He topbills the film with Joseph Marco who plays his younger brother. Baron Geisler also stars in Saka Saka.

He said he can relate to the characters’ tough life, having experienced it when he was still living in the province, and “nag-uuling nagawa ko rin yun.” And his character is a loving brother who’d do everything for his sibling, “I can relate to that.”

Because of showbiz, he said, he’s able to give his family a good life. Having assumed as the family breadwinner, he built a house in his hometown in Mindoro, bought cars and is financing the education of his four younger siblings (two of them studying college and staying with him here in Manila). He was only able to reach first-year college, and it is his biggest joy to send them to school. He’s also supporting the studies of a cousin.

Ejay will be spending Christmas in Mindoro and is sponsoring a basketball league. He makes it a point to go home twice or thrice a year. He likes going to Mindoro because it is where, he said, he can be truly himself, he can do whatever and go wherever he wants, and it keeps him grounded.

Saka Saka is the maiden offering of the production company Cinebro which, according to executive producer Richard Reynante, aims to help “resurrect” the action film scene.

MMFF New Wave entries will screen in select Philippine theaters from Dec. 18 to 24.