Why Your Upbringing Makes You a Better Actor Than You Think

For a long time in auditions I worried that coming from two different cultures made me hard to place whether I was typecasted in a specific, you know, only Hispanic or only Asian category or maybe not typecast at all.

But in character work, being an observer of two worlds isn't a handicap, it's an advantage.

Now, when you don't fit cleanly into one predictable box, you learn how to observe people with zero bias.

Now let's break that down into how to channel that into scene work.

So why navigating multiple cultures teaches you how to read subtext and listen before speaking? I think what I'm trying to get here, get at here when it comes to really embracing my background being half Filipino, half Russian.

I mean, what I found true, and it's a funny stereotype, but it's so true about how Russians are straightforward.

They're almost brutal in what they say.

and that's just because back in the day growing up you had to know if you could trust someone in an instant so you would just you wouldn't beat around the bush you would tell how it is you would speak your truth and see if you can trust someone in an instant and when you think about people's childhoods people's upbringings I mean they bring that into their scene they bring that into their character work like you think becoming the character or letting the character live through you when you think about acting in TV and film or you could bring yourself to the character you know you are letting that character live through you but they say it's in your language and Or in your tone, in the way that you speak, in your voice.

That's what the character is doing.

Your childhood, your background, your upbringing makes you say it in a way that will affect the character.

So if you grew up in Russia like my mom did and she would tell me stories about it and how they were just brutally honest, but it's just to see if they can trust the person that they're speaking with.

Your psychology, that's just how you speak.

You would deliver lines a little bit more straightforward.

But for me, being half Filipino and just really embracing that side, I realized that a lot of Filipinos, we just like to have a lot of humor.

We say funny jokes at not the wrong times, but in times where I feel need jokes.

You know, death is something that a lot of people are cautious to talk about, are sensitive to talk about.

But in the Philippines, I just remember everyone was joking around.

Like, oh, Tito, down the street, he just died.

Let's celebrate his life with some lechon.

Didn't actually happen, but just the way it was so casual in conversation was so interesting.

And it was very laid back and it was, you know, people would say funny jokes out of anything.

And so growing up in a Filipino household, that you would, that would affect how you speak.

And so when you're prepping for a scene and you let the character live through you, they're experiencing that jokiness, that funniness when you deliver your lines, if that makes any sense.

It does to me.

And I just see that through my own scene work, my own prep work.