MANILA, Philippines — Although not speaking on behalf of all Filipino actors in general, Maritoni Fernandez has 35 years of showbiz experience to back her up as she shared her thoughts on how local talents can survive their loss of income and job opportunities due to the pandemic, inflation, ABS-CBN shutdown, among others.
In an exclusive interview with Philstar.com last week, Maritoni gave some suggestions that the local showbiz industry should consider if they want improvement.
Tax deals for producers
“Number one, more producers would help,” she enthused, citing better taxing deals that would entice producers to invest more on Filipinos could help.
According to her, if local producers could be given a good tax cut, then they could use their spare budget to invest more in developing their productions’ other aspects such as technicals or hiring more talents.
“It’s way to help local producers to make better and more competitive television shows para ‘di na kailangang tumingin pa sa iba. I’m sure if our shows are as good as the telenovelas abroad, I’m sure, people would not choose something from abroad over something here. It’s just a matter lang talaga of uplifting our industry more than anything.”
More young blood needed
Although she herself is already in her 50s, Maritoni believes that giving opportunities to new names and fresh ideas would help a lot.
“I noticed kasi it goes around the same people in our industry. So maybe, being open to younger, fresher ideas, maybe fresh grads would have new ideas. I’m really not a producer so I wouldn’t know what the options are… Ultimately, as producer, your main goal is to earn money, so the tendency is to go with the tried and tested.”
Better scripts, characters
She admitted that some Filipino scripts contained the same dialogues that they used to utter even from a decade ago.
Although she has become a very bankable actress for being a serial antagonist, she, too, wanted to experiment and not just be typecast only as “kontrabida.”
“When I was younger, I had a list of roles that I want to do and a lot of them I was able to do in my 35 years in showbiz,” she recounted.
What she wants to do next are borderline thriller-suspense, drama roles.
“For me to accept a role, it has to be something I haven’t done before. Something that really strikes me. Something that I really want to do… There had been a lot of action in my youth. I don’t think I wanna explore action movies anymore. Not in my age!”
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Grow and pray
Even if she has been doing many villain roles for 35 years, Maritoni admitted that it doesn’t get any easier. As such, she makes sure to use her showbiz breaks to grow both as an artist and as a person.
“That’s also why I took a hiatus because after a certain amount of roles that are consistently the same, I thought, maybe I should relax muna, take a break, I feel burned out.”
She professed that being a “kontrabida” on screen sometimes also parlays to her real life.
“It doesn’t affect my mental health. What it does affect is my mood. Sometimes, when you’re consistently bad for weeks on end, you go home and minsan nadadala mo eh,” she said.
“Of course, although we’re trained to, the minute we got of the set, wala na dapat ‘yun, it shouldn’t affect you. But I really believe that there’s a little bit of transference. You have to be aware.”
Even how big or small a celebrity you have become, never forget that there is always a higher power to run to, she stressed.
“Especially me, especially for roles that I used to take, or other kontrabidas out there, before you start your job, break. Pray na ‘di ka pasukan ng negative spirit. Wala namang ‘di nakukuha sa dasal.”
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