Carlos Agassi: When Opportunity Knocks

Come on. Admit it. When you see hot young male celebrities onscreen, certain preconceptions dance in your head. Oh, he’s just another pretty boy who got lucky. Oh, he probably can’t act or sing to save his life and he probably doesn’t even know it. Oh, with all that unused space between his ears, he could make a killing in real estate.

Whether it may be true of him or not, Amir Carlos Damaso Vahidi Agassi doesn’t really care. If he had let preconceptions stop him from first appearing in front of a camera, he probably would not have been able to explore all possibilities that were open to him.

As the clichéd storyline goes, Carlos was just minding his own thing when an agent, Raffy Revilla, approached him and asked him if he wanted to do commercials. "One summer, I was just left here. So, as any teenager would do, I went out a lot. Five times, we kept on bumping into each other," he remembers. "I was 16 years old. I wasn’t really confident at that time. I didn’t want to take it at first."

So, what convinced him? "Then he was all, ‘tomorrow you have a pictorial. You get P10, 000.’ Being a typical teenager, you think of gimmicks, dates, clothes and stuff like that. So, I went." Then people started to notice him. More specifically, girls started to notice him. "Wow, I had money and girls! So, I gave it a try."

He did commercials for a year for such products as Rexona, J&J, and Stork. Then he joined ABS-CBN Star Circle Batch 3 and was partnered with Cheska Garcia in a series of cutesy and wholesome stints on TV. But then, things winded down for a while. One could only take so much cutesy-cutesy roles after all. "After I graduated from GIMIK, I only took Psychology and Guidance Counseling at De La Salle and I worked out because I wanted to be a basketball player," Carlos says.

Then came his 3rd year birthday in Showbiz and his handlers asked him if he had anything else to offer…something that would shock people. Then Diether Ocampo and his other friends in the business blurted out that he knew how to rap. So, he did a Beastie Boys number and they liked it. He eventually did the opening for ASAP and the KATHA awards, doing freestyle rap with some original songs by Francis Magallona. "They liked it. Francis M. liked it. He surprised me on my 4th Showbiz birthday. We did a duet," he recalls. Afterwards he was offered an album – The Amir of Rap.

The 22-year-old is certainly very proud of the talent we have in this country and was quick to voice out his wish that people would just stop mocking local show business. "They always say that the people in Hollywood have talent and the people over here just get lucky. Yes, luck does play a big part. But basically, you wouldn’t see Brad Pitt singing or dancing. Only in the Philippines would you see that," he opines. Given the fact that Brad Pitt wouldn’t be caught dead performing his own rendition of the latest Eminem song, he does have a point. Where else would you see people go to such lengths to test the thickness of their face and entertain.

Not too recently, he entered the soap opera scene with Saan Ka Man Naroroon. Actually, it was supposed to be Piolo Pascual in the show, but there were certain conflicts when it came to love teams. They looked for another guy and that guy was Carlos. "I was so happy that they accepted me with open arms because I did not know how to act. They were very patient with me," he says. "Eventually, I learned a bit and they liked it. So, I was carried over to Sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan."

Then came the much talked about Hunks. "Nobody thought of that. One time, they just put us all into one number and we goofed around and started to take off our clothes." He says with a mischievous smile. "They liked it. The audience liked it. So every week, they wanted us to sing and eventually take off our clothes." Certainly, the cuteness has been flushed from his system. The group is planning to go and perform in Dubai, Australia, Hong Kong, New York, Washington, Hawaii and San Diego before the year ends.

He was also part of the cast of the film adaptation of the Lualhati Bautista novel Dekada ’70 with Vilma Santos and Christopher De Leon with Chito Roño directing.

His second album is also coming out, produced by Andrew E. According to Carlos, it is jammed pack with guests like Francis Magallona, Piolo Pascaul, Carol Banawa and Andrew E. himself. "It ranges from Old School Rap, to Tripletts, to Ja Rule and Nelly, to a bit of a masa flavor with Andrew E. There’s a bit of rap-rock, fusion and even something for the scratchers. I really saw the range that I could do," Carlos informs.

And yes folks, like many celebrities out there, he also decided to venture into the world of business with a Dickies store in Alabang Town Center and Foot Trip, a foot spa he co-owns with Kris Aquino within the ABS-CBN Communications Center. And he wants to do more. "I guess you could say that I have a lot of options. I want to host my own show someday. If my album clicks and I would like to go international, I want to do what Marky Mark (for all who have used hypnotism to get rid of that image, Marky Mark is Mark Wahlberg) has done – action, sex and comedy. Something like the Big Hit or XXX with Vin Diesel."

It seemed that every time an opportunity bumped into Carlos, he thought ‘why not’ and gave it all that he got. Admittedly, he says that luck has played a great big part in his career. Eventually, everything was put in place and everything turned out well. Kinda like Forrest Gump. With better abs.