The Atayde family is known for having a close-knit relationship, especially siblings Ria Atayde and Arjo Atayde, who have found a best friend in each other. Ria always has nothing but sweet words to say about her brother. She is his biggest fan.
Thus, when Kapamilya React asked her to give honest reviews of Arjo’s performances in his past teleseryes, she was ecstatic and proud. “The shifting – hanep, ‘di ba?” she reacted to Arjo’s intense confrontation with Yves Flores in “Hanggang Saan” (2017) where he worked with their mom Sylvia Sanchez. In this scene, Arjo and Yves’ sibling characters unleashed pent-up emotions of anger, frustration, and guilt, and then they smoothly circled back to sorrow and love. The chaos of Arjo’s emotions was so real it hurts, and as Ria noted, proved how natural he is.
Next, she re-watched his acclaimed scene as Elai in The General’s Daughter (2019). Here, Elai grieved his father’s sudden death in the hospital after just a short time since their reunion.
Ria pressed, and most of us would agree, that Arjo put in the work needed to nail the role of a man with disability. “That was so good and Elai is one of my favorite characters Arjo did. Kasi there’s a sensitivity to portraying a character like that and he did it so well, so much so nauuwi pa niya minsan,” she rated the scene 100 out of 10.
Meanwhile, Arjo, who was with Ria during the interview, shared that only his character was supposed to cry in that scene, but everyone was caught in the moment. “During that time si Elai kasi, he was longing always for a father and that was his source of weakness. I played around that throughout the series hanggang sinabi ng production, ‘Si Elai, magkakaroon na ng Tatay.’”
He continued, “So, imagine that longing you’ve been playing around with, dadalhin mo sa pagkadating ng tatay bigla. He stayed with us for a while tapos namatay siya. Brief lang ‘yung experience with the father tapos nawala. Practically, that’s where my emotions came from.”
How will you rate Arjo’s acting in these scenes, Kapamilya?