Wild card

Marco Gallo never dreamt of becoming an actor, so why is he working hard to be the best one out there?

“What pops into people’s minds when they hear your name?” I ask the 18-year-old Filipino-Italian actor Marco Gallo. In my head, I have a list of positive traits he could use to describe himself. Kind, funny, mysterious— the usual. Instead, he laughs and answers: “Sira ulo.“

Often, we try to imagine how our first meeting with a stranger would turn out. We build up expectations, regardless if we say our expectations are little to none. I was no exception. So days before I met our last cover star of the year, I tried picturing what it would be like to meet Marco Gallo.

My imagination decided Marco was an average celebrity: conventionally attractive, charming to a tee, and approachable in a way that famous people are. You can laugh with them, have an inside joke or two, but your familiarity ends after you wave goodbye. Not because they’re cold and distant—it’s just how the business goes.

But life loves a curveball. And Marco Gallo didn’t fail to give me a memorable one.

Everybody woke up to another sunny weekday with a 30 percent chance of rainfall. It was a perfect day for an outdoor shoot. Turns out, that 30 percent decided to pop by 30 minutes before we began. My team tried to solve our supposed outdoor shoot with Marco. While they thought of alternatives, his road manager and I waited for him to arrive.

He didn’t come barging in with an entourage of personal assistants. Rather, he came by himself and walked in drenched from head to toe. He had a motorcycle helmet hanging from his arm, while he struggled to remove his flannel. Turns out, he sped through EDSA to arrive on time for our shoot.

While he explained his journey on the way here, his road manager reminded him not to ride his motorcycle, but Marco argued that his word is his bond. “Of course I had to be on time.“