In a world full of stories waiting to be told, Ian Pangilinan has found himself exploring different ways of telling them.
His career began in theater, with roles in productions including Rent, Spring Awakening, Reasons To Be Pretty, and Tabing Ilog. In 2020, he made the leap to the screen as Jose Vladimir “Vlad” Austria in the hit BL series Gaya Sa Pelikula, marking his breakthrough to wider audiences.
Since then, Pangilinan has appeared in films and television projects including Niña Niño, Love in 40 Days, K-Love, Family Matters, and Five Breakups and a Romance. His work earned him a New Movie Actor of the Year nomination and a Movie Ensemble Acting of the Year win at the 39th PMPC Star Awards for Movies in 2024. In 2026, he appeared in The Loved One as Edward.
Despite his growing presence on screen, he continues to return to theater, most recently playing Mark Cohen in Rent and Chris Abueva in Bar Boys: The Musical in 2025.
But acting is only one part of his growing practice. Pangilinan recently made his directorial debut with Patay Gutom, an official CinePanalo entry he co-directed with Carl Joseph Papa while also starring in the film.
Today, Pangilinan moves between theater, film, television, and filmmaking, exploring not just different stories, but the many ways they can be told.
Beyond One Way of Telling
For Pangilinan, there has never been just one way to tell a Filipino story. His experience across different platforms has made him see just how versatile Filipino storytelling can be, particularly in the way each medium creates a different relationship between a story and its audience.
“[The power of Filipino stories are]... I think yung different mediums, what they offer audiences in different ways to consume stories,” he says.
For him, musicals can turn storytelling into something grand and theatrical, while intimate stage productions can bring performers and audiences so close that the distance between them almost disappears. Film opens another language entirely, shaped by genre, visual style, and the individual sensibilities of the people behind the camera.
“For musicals, it's a different art form and then different style of storytelling… for movies, of course, with the different genres and all of those different… styles rin of movie storytelling,” he says before naming filmmakers and storytellers such as Lav Diaz, Martico Escobar, Kipoy Manda, and Karl Papa.
“There's just this huge kaleidoscope of different ways of storytelling,” he adds.
But what makes that kaleidoscope meaningful is not simply the number of ways a Filipino story can be told. For Pangilinan, it is the humanity that remains underneath all of them.
“I think, especially with Filipino storytelling, what often I find is naka-unify sa kanilang lahat is it feels totoong tao. As in, with all their textures, with all yung struggles of the Filipinos, with all the joys the characteristic, unseriousness ng mga tao sometimes.”
There is something familiar in that description. Filipino stories can move from a massive musical stage to a quiet independent film, but they can still carry the same sense of recognition—the humor, the struggle, the warmth, and even the tendency to find something to laugh about when things become difficult.
“Even when faced with such difficult everyday problems, the ability to just persevere and make things fun. Parang Filipinos always rage against yung everyday difficulties”
Sometimes that resistance comes through humor. Sometimes through community. Sometimes through anger. The medium changes, but the impulse remains.
And perhaps that is why Pangilinan believes Filipino stories remain worth telling even in a world where audiences can access stories from practically everywhere.
Why Our Stories Still Matter
In an increasingly global entertainment landscape, Filipino audiences are no longer limited to stories made within their own country. But for Pangilinan, that access does not make local storytelling less important. If anything, it makes the specificity of Filipino experiences worth holding on to.
“I think I bring it back to ano man ang storya na gusto mong sabihin, make sure that you make it you, kasi may isang ikaw lang sa mundong ito, may isang tayo lang as Filipinos, na parang kahit anong storya man yan, nagiging worth telling siya dahil lahat tayong mga Pilipino, we are unique in our own ways.”
For him, Filipino identity is not one fixed thing. There are people who grew up in Manila, people from the provinces, and communities shaped by entirely different cultures and experiences. Even within one country, there are countless versions of what it means to be Filipino.
“That is what makes storytelling so human. That deep, deep personal connection that you have with it.”
That personal connection is perhaps what audiences recognize when a story feels distinctly Filipino. It is not always about explicitly talking about Filipino identity. Sometimes, it is simply in the details—the way people speak, love, struggle, joke, argue, or find community.
“It's so uniquely us. As much as people would try to replicate it, iba yung mga ano eh, yung mga lumaki sa ganitong kultura, sa ganitong, parang there's a reason why abroad. ‘Di ba, na ang dali, may instantaneous connection na kabayan… Na yung parang yung meme na pag sumisigaw ka ng, “Ohh mga kababayan ko!”. Tapos yung lahat ng mga Pilipino, sasagot ‘di ba?”
There is something quietly affectionate in the way he talks about that connection. Filipino storytelling, for Pangilinan, does not have to compete with everything else in the world. It simply has to remain honest to the people and experiences it comes from.
Stories Outside the Mainstream
And yet, the stories that deserve to be seen are not always the ones that reach the biggest audiences. Pangilinan does not believe the problem is a lack of Filipino storytellers willing to take risks. In fact, he sees the opposite.
“I don't think it's a lack of Filipino stories. Parang kumbaga,I don't think it's a lack of people— of Filipinos being brave enough to tell these stories. I think they are brave enough to tell these stories.”
His concern is what happens after these stories are made.
“Sometimes they are censored. Sometimes hindi pinapakita sa ano, sa mainstream ang mga storya na ito for whatever reason.”
And that shifts the conversation toward the audience. If these stories already exist, then perhaps discovering them also requires viewers to move beyond what is immediately placed in front of them.
“So I think to kind of flip the question, parang us as Filipino viewers, let's be brave enough to seek these stories out.”
He speaks from experience. As someone who regularly attends film festivals and follows short films, Pangilinan has seen firsthand how much exists outside the most visible spaces of the industry.
There are films about people audiences may not usually see as protagonists. There are stories about workers, families, communities, and lives that rarely become the center of mainstream entertainment. They are already being told; they simply need more people willing to look for them.
“Let's be adventurous enough to seek all of these different stories out.”
For Pangilinan, the responsibility does not belong only to filmmakers. Audiences have a role in deciding which stories are given the chance to continue.
The Art of Letting People Be Seen
That idea of widening the audience also connects to how Pangilinan thinks about his own work as an actor.
When asked what he hopes people take away from the characters he has played, his answer is surprisingly simple: connection.
“Parang ang hope ko lang naman whenever I meet these characters is na may makarelate or maka-identify with the characters na I play.”
For him, the most meaningful part of performing is not necessarily creating the character that will receive the biggest reaction. It is the possibility that somewhere, someone might recognize themselves in it.
“Which thankfully, oo. And I'm so, so happy about that. And it's so touching whenever people tell me that they came from Iloilo or Davao just to catch these shows because it meant something to them na one of my characters na napanood nila before parang kind of helped them out in a certain time in their life.”
It is a different way of measuring what a performance can do.
Beyond awards, numbers, or recognition, there is the quiet possibility that a character can accompany someone through a difficult moment. That a story can become personal to someone who was never in the room when it was made.
“So I think more than trying to create a character na... “Oh, kailangan yung character na to, ganito. Tapos parang kailangan ma-receive ito ng mga audience,” parang it's more of... ayon, parang you just hope somebody somewhere out there… parang habang nanonood ng pelikula, biglang may maramdaman na onting something… within, within that time. So yun.”
Maybe that is also the heart of why Pangilinan keeps moving between mediums. The form may change, but the reason remains remarkably consistent: to create something that another person can feel.
The Unfamiliar
That same openness extends to the people who get to make these stories.
Pangilinan points to local theaters and student film festivals as places where audiences can encounter performers and creatives who have yet to become familiar names within the industry.
“Ang rami talagang talented,” he says. “As in, like if you go to local theater, if you go to yung mga student film festivals,makikita mo talaga na ang raming undiscovered people pa na sana mabigyan talaga ng platform.”
For him, the people currently occupying the biggest platforms are not necessarily the only ones capable of creating something worth watching. The industry can become smaller when it repeatedly looks for the same faces, personalities, and ideas of what a successful artist is supposed to look like.
“Ang raming kakaiba eh. As in, sobrang new, sobrang refreshing, sobrang exciting panoorin.”
He brings up Dolly De Leon, whose years of work eventually led to the international recognition she receives today.
“Ang rami nating mga Dolly De Leon dito sa Pilipinas.”
For Pangilinan, her story is not only about one artist finally receiving her flowers. It also points to how many other artists may already be doing meaningful work without fitting the industry's usual expectations.
“Parang ang rami nating mga Dolly De Leon dito sa Pilipinas.”
The possibility excites him: an industry where success does not have to come in one particular shape, and where artists do not have to wait for permission to become visible.
Making the Spectrum Wider
Pangilinan’s idea of versatility, then, is not only about having more ways to tell Filipino stories. It is also about having more kinds of people helping shape what Filipino media can become.
“Sana talaga, if given the chance…parang what an exciting thought eh, na parang magkaroon tayo ng buong spectrum ng ano… buong spectrum ng successful artists dito sa Pilipinas. Magiging sobrang mas makulay yung ano, yung itsura ng nilalabas nating media. Parang ganun.”
It is a fitting perspective for someone whose own career has never followed just one path. Theater led to television, television led to film, and acting eventually opened another door into directing. Each experience has given Pangilinan another way to understand storytelling—not only as someone performing within a story, but as someone beginning to understand how stories are built from different sides.
And maybe the next step for Filipino storytelling is not to find one definitive version of what it should be.
It is to make room for more.
More faces. More voices. More strange, intimate, funny, difficult, unfamiliar stories. More artists who may not immediately fit the picture of what the industry has decided an artist should look like.
Because for Pangilinan, progress is not only about seeing Filipino stories reach bigger screens. It is also about making sure more people can see themselves somewhere within them.
And perhaps that is the most heartfelt thing about his perspective: he does not talk about versatility as a way of making Filipino storytelling bigger for the sake of being bigger.
He talks about it as a way of making the room wider.
Wide enough for different artists to enter. Wide enough for stories that might otherwise remain unseen. Wide enough for audiences to find something that feels unexpectedly close to home.
Because the versatility Ian Pangilinan keeps telling us about is not simply how many Filipinos can tell stories.
It is how many different ways we can allow those stories—and the people behind them—to exist.
METROSCENE MAG | SEPTEMBER 2026 COVER: NEXT IN LINE
Producer, Creative/Art Director & Editor-in-Chief: Elwyn Baccay (@markelwyn)
Photography by Josh Castro (@ajoshcastro)
Makeup by Jomari Braganza (@jomaribraganza)
Hair by Mharhea Banting (@workwithmhar)
Fashion Direction & Styling by Gen Real (@genreal__) assisted by Jasper Añonuevo (@jasperuevo), Lynus Martin (@lynuss) and Cha Fronteras (@chafronteras)
Video Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Gene Francis C. Sayson (@g.f.sayson)
Gaffer: Jessal Cruz (@jessalcruz)
Co-Producer: Avin Dela Cruz (@avindelacruz_)
Set Design by Elwyn Baccay and Niña Cruz (@cruzynina)
Shot at Sikret Studio (@sikret.studio)
Written By Keshia Miranda and Elwyn Baccay
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