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The bright swings are childless and tempting me, but I wait only a minute or two before, and perfectly on time, my subject walks up to my chosen picnic table, elegantly and effortlessly handsome in a low-key, casual look. He’s immediately friendly, polite, and soft-spoken, greeting me by my first name. I’m charmed and disarmed. The location was his suggestion. “When they mentioned that there was an opportunity to meet face to face,” actor Manny Jacinto shares, “I kinda jumped on it. Because in Zoom interviews part of the communication gets lost. I like a more intimate, more one-on-one feel to an interview.”

I agree. He lives nearby these historic studio lots in Burbank and wants me to know more about the area. “This is called the ‘Rancho’ neighborhood,” he shares, “so if you keep driving along, you’ll often see people on horses. Where we live, you’ll catch horses of all sizes going up and down the street; sometimes what you might think is a large dog is actually a little pony.”

We’re here today because Manny Jacinto’s star is most definitely on the rise. From Nine Perfect Strangers to The Good Place— to the forthcoming Top Gun: Maverick—there’s something big building. No matter who he shares the screen with—and his list of illustrious co-stars across television and film just keeps getting longer—from Tom Cruise to Ted Danson, Nicole Kidman to Catherine Keener, Kristen Bell to Jameela Jamil, he always stands out. And it’s not just because of his admittedly impressive jawline, which is no trick of the klieg lights. It shows up in person, too.

I don’t mention it at all. I wouldn’t like it if someone sat down with me and only wanted to focus on, say, my earlobes. Perhaps it was all the stress of social distancing that turned other seasoned professionals into a gaggle of maiden aunties, clucking over him with that strange fixation. No, it’s not just the symmetries of his face. His allure is a lot more than that. After only moments with him, I can sense emanating from his direction a profound inner calm, a crystal clear centeredness that is the rarest thing to find in an industry packed full of neurotics.

Jacinto’s next appearance on the silver screen is a key supporting role in I Want You Back (Amazon Studios). The quirky romantic comedy stars Jenny Slate and Charlie Day as Emma and Peter, two dumpees who bond over their heartbreak—and carry out a crazy plan to get their ex-partners back by breaking up their next relationships without scruple. Shot in February 2021 on location in Atlanta, Georgia, the film is fittingly going to be released in time for Valentine’s Day 2022. It’s evident that Jacinto really had fun playing the dramatic, sensually adventurous libertine Logan in I Want You Back, who is preparing a middle school performance of Little Shop of Horrors complete with papier-mache plants, but has much loftier theatrical aspirations. “Talking to Jason [Orley, the director], I remember him saying that this was the most ‘pushed’ character in the movie.” He’s got a lot in common with this fellow thespian. “I have a very obsessive personality, which I think Logan has too, especially when it comes to what he really loves, which is the theatre and the craft of acting. It was so funny to me that he brings that same level of passion to these kids, who have no idea what’s he’s talking about.”

Jacinto, however, has much to talk about, and my time with him bounds about his career trajectory, doing a rom-com with proper coms, where he sees a complicatedly morphing industry headed, and of course, whether he thinks that big things come in small packages (or something like that).

You’ve done a lot of television comedy before, but was it hard to keep up pace with professional ‘stand-up’ comedians?

First, I have to say this—Jenny and Charlie, they are the best leaders. Along with Jason, they steered our boat magnificently. They took care of each other, they took care of us. I wish I had more scenes with Charlie, but the majority of the work was with Jenny. And I was just in awe of her—she’s so quick. And the thing is, she’s also listening. And I guess she gets that from improv or stand up, or just through her years of working. She’s not just coming up with the next thing, focused on her. She’s really there for you. I just learned so much from her. I had a blast playing with her, to be honest.

Your character Logan is unwittingly caught up in the plot’s ‘love triangle’—or is it, perhaps, a ‘love square?’

It’s almost like a ‘love hexagon’ if you count everybody.” [laughs]

As part of the ‘break them up’ plot she’s hatched, Jenny’s character proposes a threesome between her, Logan, and Anne, which becomes a major plot point of the movie. It becomes like a symbol of bohemianism... I was disappointed that it didn’t work out. I’m like, ‘C’mon everyone, loosen up!’ So can you tell me about the threesome?

I’ll be honest with you—I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s my energy—but a lot of the characters that I’ve been playing recently have been finding themselves in love-triangles, these threesome situations. From The Good Place, with Jameela and Darcy, and then Nine Perfect Strangers, with Tiff [Tiffany Boone] and Nicole, now this one with Gina and Jenny.

In a lot of interviews, you’ve said you’re an introvert.

Oh yeah. Absolutely.

So what does it feel like to be a sex symbol?

I’d need to ask a sex symbol! [laughs] Hmm. Who would that be? [pauses] Harry Styles. Or any of these pop icons. Timothée Chalamet? I don’t really think about myself as ‘a sex symbol.’

Well, to me it looks like pretty much all the hyper-masculine actors are in disgrace and have been Me-Too’d. It’s not the 90s anymore. Maybe you are the sex symbol for the future?

Thank you for saying that... It’s so interesting, this shift. Previously, there was this idea of masculinity being only one type of way... Not that it’s not there anymore—you have The Rock, Dave Bautista, these superheroes like Thor, Chris Hemsworth, these massive dudes. But we also have a shift in everyday people appreciating those that look like the guy next door, the crush in high school. Not like the football jock, but the nerdy kid, who has the cool appeal, the mysterious appeal about him.

That ‘kid in high-school’ you refer to—I assume that was you, the introvert.

Yes. That kid in high school, he’s still here, to be honest. He’s always lurking in the background. I feel like acting, and getting to do those crazy things, like threesomes, I don’t get to really do that in my ‘real’ life. Yet. Or maybe ever. So I get to do these experiences, which I wouldn’t necessarily get to do, in real life.

Because it’s not real. There’s a camera, there are lines, people everywhere?

Yeah—it’s a safe space. There’s a sense of trust. I won’t be breaking the law—or breaking people’s hearts. There’s a freedom to it.

You moved with your family from the Philippines to British Columbia, Canada when you were only three-years-old. What was that experience like?

We were very lucky. It was through my mother’s aunt, who was the matriarch of the family, that we got sponsored. So it was all because of her that we were able to come to Canada. My father’s side is still very much in the Philippines. We were very fortunate because Vancouver is a very diverse place. It’s a place that is very accepting of immigrants, especially Asian immigrants. There wasn’t a big shift in trying to ‘fit in.’ There were a lot of Filipinos, a lot of Chinese, a lot of Asian cultures around. When I go back to Vancouver, I love coming home and smelling the food... My mom’s cooking is the best. She’s just a great mom. She’s always cooking and taking care of her kids. There’s one dish in particular, called sinigang. It’s like a soup dish that’s served with rice. I can smell it right away when she’s cooking it. It takes me back to my childhood. It’s a very warm type of dish, it’s great during the winter.

I also moved like that when I was very young. You just get on the plane.

You know, as a kid you don’t really think about any of the repercussions or effects that moving would have on your identity, or being in touch with roots. I only really got to dive into those feelings and ideas much later in my life. I have an older sister, five years older. She was definitely more cognizant of the shift. She was eight to nine years old then. At that age, you have established friends, you have your own language.

What do you do for fun in LA?

To be honest, when I’m in LA, I’m always in a ‘work’ mode, just focused on auditions or writing... I definitely need to take a step back and enjoy LA sometimes. But I’ve been getting more into photography. Mostly still on set, but every now and again, I’ll take my film camera out, and go around, take some shots. I’m also a big health nut, I like to hike, go for runs, and bike. And, touching base with the world of health and wellness retreats, like in Nine Perfect Strangers, LA is also a great place to explore weird procedures... Like whether they be float tanks, cryotherapy... I’ve never done this, but I’m curious about micro-needling.

Let’s talk more about Nine Perfect Strangers, the drama based around a wellness retreat. What was it like to be onscreen with Nicole Kidman most of the time, and of course the rest of the incredible cast [which included Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Regina Hall, and Luke Evans, among others]?

It was surreal. I remember when I got the call that I was going to do it, I started yelling in the car—like, ‘Oh my god, this is going to happen!’ And it was like with a random stranger. And he’s just like—he didn’t stop smiling. I’ll always remember that moment.

That’s such an LA story. You’re in the car when a friend books a big series gig. Where did you film? It looks like a beautiful place.

We filmed in Byron Bay on Australia’s east coast. The setting is supposed to be somewhere near Los Angeles, and we were supposed to shoot in LA. But the pandemic hit, and we had to switch gears. Luckily, Nicole being Australian—she had an idea... I’d never been to Australia, and it was such a great introduction to the people, the culture... I feel like Canadians and Australians have this weird connection, with the British, the Commonwealth.

So it turns out that Tranquillum House, home to our nine self-improving pilgrims, was the ideal spot to ride out the worst of 2020?

We really were in the safest place. Of course, we also practiced all the protocols, had testing, masks, six feet apart, all that good stuff. But over the five months we shot, out of the hundreds of people that were working on the project, we had no positive cases.

So tell me about your character, Yao. He’s such a fascinating guy. Where did Yao come from?

Yao... again, there’s this ‘obsessiveness’—I guess that’s a pattern that I’m finding here. When I got the audition, I don’t know if it triggered me, but I could see his unwavering loyalty, or his obsession towards this pursuit of wellness. I tend to be a pretty loyal person, and I saw that in his relationship with the Masha character played by Nicole. I love that. I love playing with the positive sides, but also the negative sides, of almost being too loyal.

The themes of rebirth—of surrender, of love, grief, and death—these are quite heavy themes that the storylines are dealing with. Do you have a personal philosophy or religion that you would follow yourself?

This is a bit of a tangent, but the first serious role as a series regular that I ever did was for a show in Canada called The Romeo Section. And one of my co-stars was actually a Buddhist teacher; he taught meditation and was all about Buddhist teachings. And I really learned a lot from him. And the biggest thing that I took away that he taught me is the idea of impermanence. That everything is in a constant state of flow and change. And that there is no need to ‘hang on,’ to keep things the same. Let things change. The show that I was doing, this will eventually pass, but be in the present moment, and enjoy it. But know that we might not see each other again, this won’t ever be the same again.

[Before any interview, I grab a bunch of books from my shelves as research, inspiration, and mnemonic. I open my bag and take out a small paperback, which I pass to Jacinto. It’s a collection of Buddha’s Teachings known as the Dhammapada.] Does anything in particular strike you?

[Jacinto pages through intently...] The thing about me is that I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. I want to pick the right one... But you know what, let’s just go with the flow. I’m going to randomly open the book and see where it leads us. Hmm. ‘The Monk.’ Ok. Here you go: ‘Good is the control of the body, and good is the control of words; good is the control of the mind, and good is the control of our whole inner life. When a monk has achieved perfect self-control, he leaves all sorrows behind.’ [Chapter 25. The Monk. Verse 361.] Wow. ‘The Monk.’ Because I was playing a monk on The Good Place. It’s what brought me here to LA...

You’ve often referred to that as a breakthrough role. And it wasn’t a one-dimensional part. In fact, you got to play two; both the kooky DJ Jason Mendoza and the more spiritual Jianyu.

It definitely opened a lot of doors. It came out at a time, again, going back to the state of the world, previously, it came out at a time [the 2016 Trump era] when people needed to laugh. And I think that’s why it resonated so much. It taught us how to laugh, to laugh at things, but also presented huge moral questions: ‘What’s it like to be a good person?’ ‘What does it mean to be a good person?’ ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘What is our purpose?’ And all different sorts of philosophies, from Nihilism to Stoicism... all bundled up in a little fart joke.

[I extract another book from my bag—the rather swaggeringly titled, The Story Of Philosophy.] Here we go. Aristotle. Plato. Schopenhauer. Santayana. All the greats. Imagine, when most of these ideas were first spoken, these guys weren’t recording it with an iPhone, or even a typewriter, or even with electricity. They were scratching into wax with a stylus or memorizing it.

Yes. I feel like—even if you go back 20 years—there was less noise. We had a lot of time to think and be by ourselves, and just ponder. I find myself, especially as things get busier—and I’m very grateful that things are getting busy, and that I’m able to work, because that wasn’t always the case—but as I move forward in this career, I’m finding time alone is the most precious thing for me. That time to myself is a sought after commodity.

Facebook announced yesterday that they’ve rebranded across all platforms as Meta.... now that sounds more appropriate for the company that now basically runs the world. The internet used to be an escape from the ‘real world’—now it seems like the ‘real world’ is an escape from the internet. How does social media affect your life?

Negatively. [laughs] For the longest time, I resisted Facebook. But then I did it because my girlfriend at the time signed me up. And I remember that I was scrolling the other day on Instagram, and I realized, I’m not even looking at my friends anymore. I’m just looking at products and people that are trying to get my attention. It’s not about keeping in touch anymore. It’s about marketing. But now, with something like TikTok—I don’t do it, but friends tell me they find great stuff there—finance tips, real estate opportunities... It’s crazy.

[I pull out another goodie from my inspiration bag.] You hold in your hands an OG original Top Gun VHS tape from 1987, the year after the 1986 cinema release.

Wow. [laughs.] You know that you’ve made a successful movie, or you know that your movie has successfully affected people, when 30 years later—more than 30 years later—people are anticipating the next one, and are still so excited to see the next one.

You shot Top Gun all the way back in 2018; it’s now slated for release in May 2022. What was it like to be involved in such an epic film?

It was surreal. I remember telling my mom that I got a role in Top Gun, and she was—being an Asian parent—she was like ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ But later on, when I got to talk to her more about it, she was like—because, you know, the movie came out in the year that I was born— ‘You know, when you were younger, I thought, ‘WelI, I guess it would be nice if Manny could be like Tom Cruise.’

He’s like The Leading Man of leading men.

Yep, exactly. And getting to work with him, I could see the reasons why he’s been in the industry for so long—his work ethic, his level of commitment to his fans and to himself, it’s unreal. You definitely see what it takes to be around for that long. You have to find, again, the obsessive passion to keep delivering. And Tom has that, which I find very inspiring. And that energy definitely spread out among the rest of the cast that got to work with him.

It might also be said that your being cast for Top Gun represents the many Filipinos who have served with distinction in the US Navy. 2021 marks 123 years since the Independence of The Republic of the Philippines; from colonial Spain. And strong US military interests in the islands remain to this day. It compounds how crazy that ‘Asian Hate’ has become a such a terrible flashpoint of recent years. I
saw a statistic that said something awful, that anti-Asian hate crimes increased 73% in the USA over 2020, according to FBI data. Can you say something on how you relate to that, as an actor?

First of all, I am incredibly lucky to be doing this, at this time. I stand on the shoulders of those that have come before me, whether they be actors like Daniel Dae Kim, or John Cho, going back further, James Shigeta, or Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh... Even someone like as far back as Anna May Wong. All those people who had a much rougher time trying to get into, and to exist, in this industry. It’s also very unfortunate that it has taken this long. To be honest, and I hate to say this, I became more aware of racism, and the divide in cultures—also what is termed ‘systemic racism’—when I moved down here, to the States. I arrived in LA in the year whatshisface got elected. So that was my first taste of America. The constant negativity really got to me.

Whereas on the ground, people of Asian descent have always been a huge part of America. Building America, feeding America, just being Americans, for hundreds of years. And for hundreds of years, they have been marginalized.

You go to Korea, you go to China—I guess it’s because it’s their country, and they don’t have to necessarily think about it—but with actors, they don’t have to constantly think about ‘Oh, where does this person ‘fit’ in this story?’ They’re just like, ‘Oh this guy can play anything.’

Here, there is still a lot of tokenism. That, ‘Oh no, this person can’t play that part.’

I feel that we are still fighting that. I feel that when we get to that point of where we don’t have to worry about ‘placing’ or tokenism, or stereotypes, that’s when we’ve actually made some strides. But right now, it’s still a fight.

And it’s a fight you’re in. All hands on deck. And you’re doing so well. Your success is a message in itself.

Thank you, Hannah. I remember there was an opportunity for me to go to Asia, or back to
the Philippines and do it there... But in my heart, I knew I had to do this here in America.
I was like: ‘I don’t want to run away from this fight, I want to stay and try and change things.’ It’s more worth it to me to be the guy who’s pushing the envelope, rather than the one who follows, or just goes with the flow.

What does the future hold for Manny Jacinto? What are your ambitions and goals?

The first thing that comes to mind, and the thing that we’re really working towards, is being a leading man. And when I say those words out loud, there’s so much ... there are feelings of anxiety and also feelings that... I don’t want to put it out there. But I need to. Because if I don’t believe it, nobody else is going to believe it. So yeah. Whether it be a lead in a drama or a comedy or an action film, mystery or thriller, that’s where I want to be.

[And with that, our picnic’s over, and we part. After just over an hour in his presence, it’s clear that this rising actor has got much more than mighty fine bone structure to offer the world of acting. He is enigmatic, wise, and ripe for spiritual and physical stardom.]