ShareThisBy JO ERLINDA GABOT NEBRES
Thank God, I am a Filipino.
Thus said Filipino American actor Rob Schneider during an interview before his jampacked one-night show at the Solaire Hotel and Casino Resort in Pasay City.
Schneider acknowledged his Filipino roots, his mother being half Filipino who grew up in Baguio City where, he said, he has many relatives.
Schneider’s grandmother is full-blooded Filipina who married his American husband while on duty at the Clark Air Force Base in Pampanga.
After his one-night-only show here, the FilAm actor said he plans to returnb with his wife and daughter for a vacation to Cebu and Baguio which he disclosed were the places he first went to in the ‘70s as a child.
Schneider said he may also shoot a movie in the Philippines. He said he likes to do a movie like Journey’s Arnel Pineda.
During a television interview, the FilAm actor challenged world boxing icon Manny Pacquiao to a karaoke singing. Pacquiao, who is known to love singing, however, was deep in training in his forthcoming fight in Macau against Brandon Rios, so he was not able to respond to Schneinder’s challenge.
The “Deuce Bigalow” star said he would really want to meet the boxer and do a duet, ABS-CBN News reported.
“Pacquiao, I love you, I’m supposed to meet you for a gig. I want a song with you, I want to do a duet with you. Come on, Manny. You and me, Pacman, karaoke, Manila. You know you want to baby,” Schneider dared Pacquiao.
The comedian acknowledged his Filipino roots when he was presented a surprise advance birthday cake at his presscon. He will turn 50 on October 31.
Schneider was born in San Francisco and lived in Daly City which he said was a Filipino town in the Bay Area. He now lives in Los Angeles.
The actor said there’s nothing like making Filipinos laugh. “I’m telling you, the best laughing people in the world are Filipinos, man. Nothing makes you feel better than Filipinos laughing,” he said at his presscon.
During the presscon, Rob poked fun at a lot of things, starting with himself, ABS-CBN News reported.
Schneider said: “I grew up just south of Daly City, which they call, you know, Little Manila. More Filipino people than anybody else. So, I never consider myself short as I was always surrounded by Filipino people. I always considered myself as a basketball player or something till I was in high school, when both my friends were about a foot taller than me that I realized I was short (laughs).”
The Fil-Am actor added: “I have a lot of relatives coming in from Baguio, the Hamadas, then the Formosos from here in Manila…”
He joked: “ They’re coming in, ‘Robert, can we have 55 hundred tickets for the show tonight, we’re coming, we’re bringing a few friends, we’re bringing in 55,522 people from Baguio. It took us six days to get here.’”
Schneider co-wrote and starred in such hit comedies Deuce Bigalow movies, The Hot Chick and The Animal.
He said that not only does he owe his sense of humor to his genes, but his training ground was his home amidst encouraging and supportive Filipino relatives.
“My mom being Filipino and my dad being Jewish, it was a good mix. So, we had good laughing people. When you’re Filipino, as soon as you’re done eating, you’re laughing. Usually, they’re laughing while they’re eating. It was a great place to practice,” he said.
“(As a stand-up comedian) you have to have confidence to get on stage and perform for other people. My relatives were so warm and supportive of me that I felt if I could make everybody there laugh, then I have a chance of making other people laugh. I couldn’t wait for any holiday or something because it was great, you’d be around all of them, laughing and the good food, lumpia, pancit, adobo….
“I mean, the only reason I became successful is because I had a lot of support when I was a kid. I felt the love from them. You know, I can deal with rejection; you can deal with rejection as long as you know you got some love behind you. If everything fails, I can go home and make them laugh, and I know I can get some good food (laughs).”
Schneider acknowledged he learned a lot from his hard-working mother.
He disclosed his mother taught him to expect more from himself. “I would get A’s and B’s in my report card, and she goes, ‘So, what? You’re not an idiot. You’re expected to get that. You’re smart. When you get something special, then we’ll talk.’ My whole childhood was like that. She pushed me to be overly successful. My mother, she went to college, she put herself through school, she worked hard. That’s why she expected a lot (from me). She set a good example.”
He added: “I’ve traveled all over the world, and one thing constant — hard-working Filipino people. Everywhere. I was just in Singapore, so many people working and laughing over there are Filipinos. You better be nice to Filipinos because you might end up in the hospital one day and they’re running the place (laughs). You better respect Filipinos ‘coz you’re gonna need them one day. They’re caretakers. My family in New Jersey, the Lapids also from Baguio, they have nursing homes. They take care of people and it’s the best because they do it with love. There’s nothing better than that.”
He continued, “I used to love hearing all her stories about the war, the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. My mother found money that the Japanese buried in a cave. Her mother washed it and that’s what they went to school with. She never had a father (who was an American soldier who just left). They also found these ‘valuable’ things that they thought were metal pineapples but it turned out they were hand grenades (laughs). That’s a true story… My life is never gonna be as hard as that. So my mom instilled in me, you gotta work and you’ll be successful, and don’t let anything stop you. That’s a beautiful trait and that’s a Filipino trait.”