IN 50 YEARS OR SO, when someone wants to remember Filipino-American actress Vanessa Hudgens, they will inevitably go back to the movie that first made her famous: High School Musical.
It’s been a long time since 2006, when she first appeared on her Disney Channel Original Movie breakout role: a lot has happened to the world and herself since then. Still, she said in an interview with media personality Boy Abunda last Friday, “It happened so long ago. But new generations are born, and the older brothers and sisters want to share it with their younger brothers and sisters, and it just continues to live on. The kids who were watching it have their own kids, and they’re showing it to their kids.”
Ms. Hudgens is in town to shoot a documentary with director Paul Soriano, with the working title Awakening. Snaps of her in Palawan were posted on her Instagram page last week. Ms. Hudgens was also named as one of the country’s Global Tourism Ambassadors in a ceremony with the incumbent president, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
The actress, known for roles in The Princess Switch and Tick, Tick…Boom!, as well as hosting at the 2022 Met Gala red carpet, discussed what it felt like growing up Filipino-American in California. “I feel like I was definitely raised very American — except for all the rice, and the adobo, and the pancit,” she said.
“But I was definitely in a place where I think my parents saw in an early age that I had this gift, and they wanted to support me and allow it to flourish and grow. Obviously, it really has, and it’s taken me (places). It’s been really interesting coming here and really beautiful and eye-opening,” she said. “I feel like just the family aspect of the Philippines is something that is so prominent and so strong. I’ve always been so close to my mom and my sister.”
Her mother, Gina Guangco, hails from the Philippines. “It was very much about the closeness of your family,” she said about what she knew about the country from her mother. “Everybody sticks together. But like, I didn’t really know about the history, or the lineage; what the vibe was, honestly.”
She does credit her “passion for the mystical” to her own lineage, however: “All the things that have just been innately stuck within me, I’m realizing comes from my heritage.”
This is, she said, her first visit to the country in her 34 years. She gives this reason for finally coming to her mother’s home country: “I’m in my 30s now. I’m thinking about raising a family. I want to be able to know my heritage so that I can bring that forth and so that my kids know their background. They’d know more about their own blood.”
FILIPINA(ISH) IN HOLLYWOODOn big screens, we are about to see a black Little Mermaid, and a black Tinkerbell. Earlier this year, Asian actors Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan took home the Oscars for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All at Once (which also won Best Picture). Ms. Hudgens relates these triumphs for people of color in Hollywood to her own experiences.
“Growing up, the only Filipino that I really knew who was in the business was Lea Salonga.” The singer-actress, at that time, was the singing voice of Princess Jasmine and Mulan in the Disney animated films Aladdin and Mulan. “Her voice continues to live on to this day, and is honestly a big reason of why I sing and how I sing.”
Talking about being Filipino-American in Hollywood, she said, “I feel like it’s still honesty a struggle.” She mentions being discouraged from auditioning for a dream role because she wasn’t Black or Latina. “I’m ethnic! That’s what you’re looking for!,” she said.
“It’s hard. It really is. I think that I’m still out there trying to find where I fit in Hollywood. It is becoming more welcoming and becoming more colorful. All we can do is continue to tell stories that we love.”
Discussing the importance of representation and diversity on the big screen, she said: “It’s about seeing people who look like you so that you can be inspired to pursue something that you’ve never thought would be possible otherwise.
“The more that we can celebrate films and people from all around the world, the more of a melting pot it becomes. The more people are exposed to different cultures, the more accepting people who might be closed off to it become.” — Joseph L. Garcia
