The Kidulthood of Aljur Abrenica

MANILA, Philippines –  He slumps forward in his seat, cranes his neck a tiny bit. “Alam mo na ba gagawin dito?” Up next, the money shot: subject’s sheepish smile, followed by a shy: “Hindi ko pa nga alam e…”

Right.

I can forgive the naiveté. I mean, he’s only 20.

“Twenty-one in March,” he pipes up.

But somewhere, someplace (a. in the pit of my stomach; b. front and center at the 2009 Cosmo Bachelor’s Bash; or c. between Angeles and Manila  a distance he’s had to cover since besting 12,000+ Starstruck auditionees in 2006), I just can’t reconcile the man-child that is Aljur Abrenica.

On one hand, there are the humble Hulk’s laurels: Starstruck’s Ultimate Hunk, Sexiest Man in the Philippines for 2009 (according to starmometer.com, natch), the most pleasant surprise at said Cosmo bash, that same year (he did the honors of emptying a bottle of water all over himself), and most recently, this generation’s Machete, a role heretofore played by able-bodied actors Cesar Montano and Gardo Versoza.

On the other hand, there’s the coy boy before me. His elbows planted on the table, an extended gaze at his hands while talking, an unconscious raise of the eyebrows here and there.

For the sake of moving on, I decide he’s somewhere in between.

“Did you always want to be an actor?”

“I really wanted to be a singer! My dad is an entertainer… it’s what we lived off of. Our family actually has a bar in Batangas City.”

Fate intervened, however, when Aljur was in his senior year of high school. To be more specific: because a girl told him to.

While taking his periodical exams two quarters before graduation, his then-girlfriend texted him, saying it was the penultimate day of auditions for the artista search show Starstruck. “She was trying out, and she said she had an extra application form for me… It’d be a waste if no one used it.”

So, that same day, right after his tests, Aljur found himself at the tail end of a line at SM Clark, waiting all afternoon and all evening, up until the mall closed… and not being able to get in. When he finally stood before the panel bright and early the next day, Aljur recalls the judges’ curious treatment of him.

For one, he was put on the spot and made to dance. “I was so nervous, but when the music started…” he lurches forward and breaks into motion, as if to complete the thought. And whereas others were made to sing for just 10 seconds, he had to be the one to stop himself from finishing his choice of song  O-Town’s All Or Nothing, pardon the high school student. He was admittedly into boy bands.

And now? He shakes his head, playfully. “Nagbabago na ang panahon…”

Ominous words, considering where he’s at, five years into his career. After a successful string of soaps with his love-team partner and fellow Starstruck winner Kris Bernal, GMA-7’s Machete sees Aljur widening his horizons, taking on a much more daring role and romancing new leading ladies Bela Padilla and Ryza Cenon. It’s a character that the young actor’s invested in, both physically and mentally.

The Tarzan diet

At a producer’s prodding three years ago that Aljur was the person he had in mind for the TV adaptation of the late Pablo S. Gomez’s comics serial, Aljur started training hard at the gym  carving out cuts and whittling away around the abs, the better to portray an ancient warrior-turned-statue-turned-real life-lover of the woman who, well, carves him.

Add to that some serious swimming sessions, and a Tarzan-esque diet prepared for him daily by his mom (who, incidentally, moved from Pampanga to Manila starting 2009, although the family-oriented actor makes it a point to constantly visit Batangas also). At the mention of his eating habits, he points to a hefty brown paper bag, which one very obedient “Chard” proceeds to empty in a surreal sort of show and tell.

Out come the plastic containers with contrastingly non-plastic contents: a mound of grapes, grilled tuna without the salt, salad without the dressing, boiled camote without the cue. It’s a regimen passed on to him by his trainer, who, after Marky Mark and Zac Efron, is now Aljur’s peg for his fitness goals. “I want to be able to stick the half part of a coin in between my abs, and make it stay there… My trainer can do a five-peso coin.”

He goes on to overwhelm with the details, as I try not to imagine what that’s like. “Yung tipong pag naligo ka, yung tubig, gaganun…” The two pointer fingers tracing a labyrinthine abdominal outline trap in the air didn’t help, either.

Of course, beyond the distracting externals, Aljur made his own studies of the character’s psyche, writing up a hypothetical history of motivations and childhood experiences, on his own. The fact that the warrior also comes to present-day city life, from ancient times, required Aljur to imbibe a wide-eyed, fish-out-of-water demeanor. “When he encounters cars, he attacks them, thinking they’re wild beasts,” he laughs.

In a way, the boy is a lot like the warrior he’s come to play. A born fighter; a man on the cusp; a hometown hero transplanted from his territory, but still, gloriously making it big, in another. In truth, it’s when he’s left to his own devices  at the front of the line, barely minutes from the music  that the boy instantly becomes the man he needs to be. At that very moment, as the ones before it, no one has to tell him what to do.