Jake Cuenca embraces the joys and pains that come with love

January 15 ------ Jake Cuenca’s emotional pain was evident on his Instagram story, showing himself in tears which he posted last April.

The actor revealed during an interview that what pushed him to tears were “pain and loss.” “I think that was an accumulation of a lot of things that had happened to me in the pandemic. In a weird way, this is a reset for me and then I told myself, ‘I wanted this year to be somewhat a reintroduction of what I can do as an actor,’” said Jake, who topbilled My Father, Myself, one of the eight official films in the ongoing 48th Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).

He shared that pain has become his friend after having realized that life, indeed, has its ups and downs. “Parang, I accept life in all its terms and conditions. I can’t just love life when things are happy and then hate it when things are bad. What I’m trying to learn now is to see the beauty of life and when bad times happen, I try to find laughter in that. You can’t just accept life when it’s good because life isn’t always good, di ba? So, I try to train myself to see the beauty in every situation whether it’s good or bad.”

But when he’s in love, Jake embraces the joys and pains that come with it. “When it comes to love, you can’t really regret things because when it was there, it made me very happy and now that it’s not here, I can’t hate it or I can’t get mad at it. I can only look back at it with joy, but it also makes me sad because it’s not there anymore.” When asked how he handles being alone, he answered: “Before when I was younger, I couldn’t stand being alone but now, I think I’ve enjoyed my time in solace, parang that’s when my creativity comes out when I’m alone, when I’m studying. I was able to do that this past six months. I think I was somewhat of a social butterfly. I think I enjoyed the noise; I enjoyed being in loud places, with a lot of people. Now at 34, I’m starting to discover that my creative process really comes out when I’m alone.”

When asked when was the last time he tried to find himself, he answered: “I haven’t done that in six months. These past six months I really decided that, because of everything ha, everything considered, also three years of this lockdown, I felt I was like suppressed, I felt like I got very hungry to perform and now I feel I have abundance in me so I really wanna create more.” When asked what makes him happy now, he answered: “My craft, my family — my mom most especially.” When asked what it was like to be him, he answered: “The past year, it’s been a bit tough. A lot of things have happened. But now, I can say that I have thicker skin. I am tougher, the worst part is over. I am better so right now I can say — to describe myself — I’m excited to work, I’m motivated more than anything.”

Asked about how he evolved into a brilliant actor despite the naysayers, he said: “I think I did it in the sense na parang I told myself that I’m gonna work harder because with my career, it’s not like I was always the favorite. It’s not like I was always the one that’s easily cast. So, I knew that I have to prove myself and when I heard the criticisms before, I took that constructively even though it was painful because to be called those things, it’s really difficult when you really love what you’re doing and you really want to be successful in what you’re doing.”

Asked about what’s in store for him, he answered: “A whole lot is to come. I’m looking forward to what’s gonna happen. I do mean it when I feel like I have an abundance in me. I feel like the three years made me so hungry and now, to be honest, I just want my characters and my projects to speak for me, rather than me trying to sell them.”

Source: philstar.com