NEWSFLASH 

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CABLE SHOW STAR: VON FLORES, FIL-CANADIAN TV ACTOR

Quezon City, April 9, 2000 - Twenty seven years ago, a 13-year-old boy from Pateros migrated to Toronto, Canada with his parents

Today, Von Flores is recognized world-wide as FBI Special Agent Ronald Sandoval in Gene Roddenberry’s latest TV science fiction series "Earth: Final Conflict."

Gene Roddenberry’s (creator of the hit TV series "Star Trek" and the sci-fi television movie "Planet Earth") "Earth: Final Conflict" which is already on its second season, airs every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on AXN or Action TV (available in the Phillippines on ACCION, Home Cable, Destiny, and the Pilipino Cable Corporation).

The series deals with the earthly visit of a new race of extraterrestrial called Taelons or the Companions. Hiding under the guise of peace, the Taelons pose a threat to humanity and force humans to determine the real reason for the alien’s visit.

Von Flores plays an important role as FBI special agent Ronald Sandoval. Being the host of a Cyber-Viral Implant, he became a Taelon loyalist whose objective in life was to support their plan for mankind domination. Von Flores becomes one of the series’ intriguing characters since Sandoval possesses different facets of personality and no one really knows of his intentions not even the Taelons at times.

Von survived the first test of a TV series mainstay: his character Sandoval stays on for the second season of the show.

Von considered bagging the covetous role of Ronald Sandoval a big surprise.

"I had two auditions for the show. The first audition was horrendous! It was the worst audition I’ve ever done in my career. I think maybe because when I read the character breakdown, I couldn’t get it out of my mind this guy who has done a show for William Shatner called "‘Tek Wars.’ So when I went into the audition that’s the character I had in mind. And it didn’t come out as well as I hoped for. But the second audition was completely different. That was like my day! I was called by a friend of mine who happened to be designing the show and said that he had a role for me, a role of the bartender kinda like Rick of ‘Casablanca.’ So when I went to the audition I thought I was auditioning for the other role but sure enough it was for the same role I auditioned for previously. Then I couldn’t decide how to do it whether the way the new character was supposed to be or the way it was written or the way I think they want me to do. I just basically did it the way it was written," explained Von. The rest is history.

Von Flores’ taste of showbiz began when he landed a guest lead role for the TV series "Night Heat." Since then he has been inspired and devoted in furthering his acting craft. He took acting lessons in New York City at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and at The Center for Actors Study in Toronto. He went on to study movement and dance at Richard Sugarman Ballet, Hart House Ballet and the Studio Dance Theater in Toronto.

His acting credits include numerous leading and guest roles in different television shows like the series "FX," "Kung Fu," "The Adventures of Sinbad," "Lonesome Dove," "Forever Knight," "ENG," and "Street Legal." He also appeared on the Atlantis Films TV movies "TekWar," "TekJustice," and "TekLords." His movie stint include "I Love a Man in Uniform," and "Eclipse."

Q: How long have you been acting?

VF: I’ve been acting for about ten years now.

Q: What field of acting have you mostly been into, drama, TV or film?

VF: Mainly film and television. I’m very lucky. And I’m one of the few actors especially in Toronto who has made a living out of acting. My last (film) project was with Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland and Bens Kingsley called the “Assignment.” And that was shot in Israel. Aidan Quinn was very good to work with.

Q: What role did you play here?

VF: Aidan Quinn had a dual role in it. The one role was a Naval officer who was a dead ringer for Carlos The Jackal, who was a great terrorist who was captured recently and his alter ego, The Jackal, Carlos had a sidekick and that was me the body guard and it was an incredible opportunity for me to work with these actors in a big picture.

Q: What made you decide to take on a villain part?

VF: That was what was available. I actually enjoy villainous parts because I don’t like rules for one thing. And it is easier to break the rules as a villain that it is to break the rules as a hero. There are certain parameters that a hero has to play so that he remains a hero. And a lot of the roles written nowadays for heroes are such that it is almost impossible to play it

different from what I think producers and audiences expect.

Q: Tell me about your acting training. Did you take acting in college?

VF: No. I was actually getting Chemistry at the University of Toronto. But I’ve always been playing the trumpet since I was seven or eight years old. Well I got into acting because I was running of things to do in life as I always say. Actually, after Chemistry I went to Real Estate. I went to Real Estate simply because I was sick and tired of being poor. I made pretty good money out of that. And I think also that my great fortune was that I went into it at the peak of the Real Estate business in Toronto.

Q: How did you land in acting?

VF: I was bored with Real Estate. I knew that there was a lot of lying involved in Real Estate. I felt that clients didn’t want to believe that their house wasn’t worth a million dollars. And how do you tell them that.

Q: How does it feel to be a successful Filipino in this field because there are just a few of you making it in acting in abroad?

VF: Yeah. I’m certainly blessed because it is hard enough. I think that the industry is such that 90 percent of the wealth is earned by 10 percent of the talent. And just because you are talented doesn’t mean that you are gonna be successful. So I think regardless of my heritage I’m a fortunate and very lucky guy. It just so happens that I’m a Filipino and it so happens that I think producers recognize that I can do a job and so they hire me. What I usually tell people is that my grandmother, my mom’s side of the family, their business was roasting pig, lechon. And I don’t eat meat and chicken. I was actually vegetarian for about six years. But what I would tell people was that I was born Filipino, I was raised Canadian and my passion is Italian. So I’m an immigrant of the world. I was telling a good friend of mine who happens to be our producer that it is really strange to be an immigrant because once a person is an immigrant, he or she will always be an immigrant. There will never be a sense of home anywhere. A sense of home is decided upon by you who know yourself and perhaps you’ve been here all your life and that’s what home is. Even though I’ve been in Canada almost all my life, there were times that I don’t consider it home. And so I decided that since I love Italy so much someday I would like to call it home.

Q: Can you tell me about your first acting experience.

VF: Paid or unpaid? (Laughs) When I was in Real Estate, I decided to take up acting classes in Toronto once a week, one night a week. I bumped and befriended a guy who happen to be a Filipino. And in one of our classes he came up to me and said that he was attending a cattle call, this when you go along with a thousand people to audition for one role. And so he asked me to go with him. I had no intention whatsoever to audition but I went there the next day and he never showed up. The casting directors has a piece of paper that has one or two of the scenes from the script and you audition from that. I’m very fortunate that I can memorize things quickly, but I forget them quickly too. So when he didn’t show up I looked at the script and I decided to audition. At the beginning I was doing four or five shows a year. And for an actor in Toronto that’s a lot of job.

Q: What do you dream of achieving right now?

VF: I’m actually writing a treatment for a script. It is about an African-American soldier during the Filipino-American war, that’s a fictional character, who happens to befriend Gen. Gregorio del Pilar. For me it is a way to tell the Filipino-American experience during the 1898. I’m also writing a short script for my first directing gig because I also want to venture in directing someday.

Q: But how did you learn about Gregorio del Pilar? And why choose him among other national heroes?

VF: Well he was considered a very brilliant general at 18 and he died at 24. I don’t know but there was something very moving about his passion to fight for freedom which the African-American was wanting all his life especially after the evolution of slavery. But he never got that so I thought how incredibly fitting that the story should be told through the eyes of an African-American. The tag line for the script really is “he couldn’t fight against what he was fighting for.” And that was freedom.

Q: What are your other passions?

VF: I love writing. I love traveling. I love writing poetry, prose. I love painting and I love to go see movies. I love European films. I’m a “Euro-centricsnob,” I think. I love eating and I love eating.

Q: What’s your philosophy in life? What keeps you gung-ho with your life right now?

VF: I just hope that I can face up to my challenges and understand that they are not meant for me to fail but to move forward. I just hope that I can wake up in the morning and understand that that was what I was supposed to do. I was talking to a dear friend of mine and we were talking about how you know what so funny because I think that the universe really does guide us. And that I know that I’m being guided by the universe when everything seems to fall into place. And it will only fall into place only if I’ll listen to the universe. If I’m not listening to the universe it is like banging your head up to a brick wall. So I just hope that I’m just good enough to what is happening around me, the people I interact with to understand that I’m being guided even you know in brief encounters.

Q: You mentioned universe instead of god. Does this have something to do with your spirituality?

VF: I like to think that I have a certain level of understanding about spirituality. Religion I think is a vehicle for us hopefully to attain a certain level of spirituality. I think we have to go, I certainly feel that I have to go beyond the word and understand the message as supposed to stopping at the word and doing it that way. Having a Filipino background there’s a lot of Catholic influence. I’ve also dealt in other religious disciplines that I felt were necessary for my growth. But in terms of being faithful to one or the other, I think that every religion has its good points to offer to whoever it is who wants to practice it.

Q: How did your showbiz life change you?

VF: Wow, hopefully it hasn’t changed me greatly as a person. I think I’m still pretty much the obnoxious person as I was before the show (laughs). But certainly, in some degree, personally it has changed me because it afforded me a lifestyle that I really like namely traveling. It is really weird because I was in Central Bay, South of France, in July of last year, because of the exposure that I have through the show I can go to a country that I barely speak the language and hear them talk about me. I walked in a café‚with a friend of mine and I could hear these French people talking and they’ve looked at me and I heard my character’s name Sandoval. And I’m the type of person that haven’t really considered the impact of what I do and what impact it has on people.

Q: Has this show restricted you in doing other things?

VF: Well fortunately and unfortunately the show has restricted my timetable. Last season I had to turn down three offers because I couldn’t do them and I was working on the show. In a way it is terrific because I don’t have to worry about finding some matters.

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