The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
When John Lloyd Cruz resurfaced publicly two years ago after almost a two-year hiatus and eventual romantic break-up with Ellen Adarna he seemed to shock many people with his beard and long hair he showed without hesitation.
Critics lambasted him for the “unglamorous” look and if saying you’re an actor and should always appear tidy and glamorous. Some said John Lloyd has wasted his time and popularity. Some even looked down on him and cast a foreboding gaze that he was already a has-been.
Cruz just shrugged them off and moved on with his life taking care of his son Elias if ever the boy was with him and planning a showbiz comeback.
All along, though, there was a reason for Lloydie’s growing long hair, a moustache and a beard many people just looking from the outside didn’t care to know.
According to awarded actress Hazel Orencio, there’s more to John Lloyd’s wearing long hair, mustached and bearded than meets the eye.
Hazel said in her social media posts that back in 2019, so many things were said about JLC and his look. Orencio added that the actor kept mum, never said a word and never reacted.
Here’s Hazel’s caveat on the issue however belated: “People forgot that he is first and foremost an actor; it was just him preparing for a role in a film set in 1957,” she opined.
The film is titled “Historia ni Ha” and John Lloyd portrays a ventriloquist with Lav Diaz at the helm.
Orencio said Lloydie took everything in stride. “He prepared, nonetheless. He didn’t cut his hair and he made his beard grew as per Lav’s instruction. He immersed in the role of Hernando Alamada, a ventriloquist who used to work in cruise ships as an entertainer. Recluse, never talks. It was just Ha, the doll, doing the talking for him. It was an advantage to him, a valid excuse to be quiet,” she noted.
But the character of John Lloyd in the film and as a real life person, Hazel must have qualified, has depth and discernment.
Orencio’s impression of Cruz as an artist and as an individual person is gleaned over these thoughts: “Yet it doesn’t mean he wasn’t challenged. The act of being silent alone for all the criticisms he got for looking that way was challenging; much more plunging into a ventriloquist role-something he has never done yet. Being an actor myself, I know how pressured he must be back then. But he took it. Shooting day by shooting day, script after script, he plunged deep into the character. He got acquainted with Ha and eventually became close to him. Needless to say, he was able to pull it, and for us who’ve been with him on this journey, he delivered as always, with flying colors,” she stated.
“Historia ni Ha” is now an official selection in the upcoming British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival in October and one must say John Lloyd’s reticent attitude about criticisms has slowly but surely paid off.