What inclusivity looks like for this new love team
No baby-talking. That was director Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s one hard-and-fast rule on the set of “I’mPerfect,” her upcoming romantic drama film top-billed by actors with Down syndrome.
If the film genuinely promotes inclusivity and aims to show that people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) can learn, love, and work just like everybody else, then the production team shouldn’t be the first to betray that mission. And infantilizing them—talking down to them, like many do because of preconceived notions—does exactly that.
Bernardo made herself clear: They are not children.
“How my actors are treated is very important to me. I had to remind my team na hindi sila bata. When you talk to them, talk to them like they’re regular actors,” Bernardo tells Lifestyle Inquirer. “If mali ang ginagawa nila, i-correct o pagalitan mo. I’m very strict with that. It can be hard because they’re so sweet, but I’m a disciplinarian.”
Same working hours
After all, she says, interacting with them as capable adults is, in itself, a form of inclusion. “They’re 25, 28 years old! Why talk to them like they’re babies?” Bernardo says of her cast of actors with Down syndrome, led by the promising Earl Amaba and Krystel Go.
Many people instinctively start shifting to a high-pitched tone or oversimplifying their speech when talking to people with Down syndrome, likely based on assumptions about cognitive ability or a misguided sense of pity. Even Tonton Gutierrez, who plays the father of Amaba’s character, admits that he was once guilty of doing this. “Hindi pala dapat gano’n,” he says.
Other cast members with Down syndrome—Royce Rivera, Richelle Uy, Gio Dicen, Bea Mendoza, Jonathan Tilos, Javi Sarmiento, Carl Garcia, and Angela Batallones—followed the same working hours as their senior colleagues. Their parents were usually on location, but not on the actual set. They eat on their own, move about independently, and follow the director’s instructions.
“They’re humans too and get tired, but it’s important for people to know that they can handle regular working hours,” stresses Bernardo, whose filmography includes the sleeper box-office hit “Kita Kita” and the acclaimed coming-of-age drama “Ang Huling Cha-cha ni Anita.”
Equity, not equality
But of course, equal treatment doesn’t mean identical treatment. So, although the actors are treated as professionals, the production also recognized that certain accommodations had to be made.
Because the actors are well-attuned to others’ emotions and some are particularly sensitive to noise and stimuli, Bernardo made sure her set was always “full of good vibes.” “Bawal ang galit as set. They can always sense when you’re angry or sad,” she says. Shooting is inherently stressful, and more so for people with Down syndrome—some of whom, like her actors, can be prone to fainting or dizzy spells when overwhelmed by extreme emotions.
Too much dancing on set—their favorite pastime—can have the same effect.
“I panicked the first time it happened. But then we realized, and were told, that it was normal,” Bernardo says. “They love to dance, and sometimes they get carried away. But they themselves joke about it: ‘One down! Two down!’”
It also bears noting that these are first-time actors. Bernardo won’t pretend that directing the actors was business as usual. Most of them don’t always speak clearly, like Amaba, who can be an extremely fast talker, she says. Go, on the other hand, has wandering eyes and couldn’t help glancing at the cameras.
But with patience and proper guidance, they pulled it off—and with flying colors. “Ang laki ng improvement nila. Kayang-kaya talaga nila,” Bernardo says. Besides, she adds, she has worked with more experienced actors who were even bigger headaches.
The actors’ openness and enthusiasm, however, more than made up for their inexperience. And throughout shooting, the one thing that consistently stood out, Bernardo says, was their remarkable ability to focus on what they can do. They don’t dwell on their limitations. When challenges arose, they took it head on—no questions asked.
“They don’t complain that they can’t do something. They say yes and do their best. In fact, they’re so committed to their work that they refuse to take bathroom breaks during shoots—I had to urge them to do so,” she says. “They appreciate the trust given to them, and they’re determined not to let you down.”
Not just wallflowers
Bernardo’s understanding of IDD has come a long way since 2009, when she volunteered to conduct a summer acting workshop for individuals with Down syndrome, autism, and cerebral palsy. At the time, public understanding was even more woefully lacking, Bernardo recalls, and in her province, people with IDD were derogatorily referred to as “baliw, may topak, or Mongoloid”—terms considered outdated and highly offensive today.
But it was that experience that inspired Bernardo to educate herself and, ultimately, champion their cause. “Nagulat ako. Bakit hindi alam ng mga tao ang kakayahan nila?” she says.
Since then, she vowed to make a movie, not just about them, but one that stars them—“‘Yong hindi lang sila wallflowers or symbols lang.” She came up with the script in 2014 and pitched it to producers. When met with doubts and trepidation, she shot a teaser trailer in 2017 (featuring different actors) to help boost her case.
But it wasn’t until 2024 that the movie found a producer in Nathan Studios. “Gagawa ako ng pelikula. As a filmmaker, ‘yon ang nakita kong instrumento, my way of communicating with my audience,” she shares. “I know it’s a risk for producers, pero ‘di ko talaga ‘to binitiwan.”
Showbiz na showbiz
Now, “I’mPerfect,” will be screened in cinemas as part of the Metro Manila Film Festival, starting Dec. 25. The story isn’t a medical case study—as so often happens with other media portrayals—but a love story.
It follows Jiro (Amaba), a young man with Down syndrome living a relatively sheltered but otherwise functional life. Everything changes when he meets Jessica (Go), an independent and spirited woman who also has Down syndrome. Their budding romance, however, sends their parents into a whirlwind of panic.
And in true Philippine showbiz fashion, Amaba and Go faced the usual romance-related questions actors get during promo blitzes. (They even played a lie-detector challenge elsewhere.)
“Who’s your crush? Earl, bakit love mo na si Krystel?” one reporter asked.
“I wanna marry her,” says Amaba, legs crossed with a swagger that could give Daniel Padilla a run for his money.
“Puwede bang ma-in love si Krystel kay Earl?”
“Ano ba, wala ‘to! Secret!” Go says, coyly putting a finger to her lips. “Panoorin niyo na lang ‘I’mPerfect,’” she quickly adds—as if she were promoting her fifth movie and not her first.
“Showbiz na, showbiz ah!” the host teased Go as reporters laughed along.
Call them ‘EarlStel’
Seeing that playful banter made Bernardo’s heart full—that scene was exactly what she had envisioned for the two: Holding their own and playing along with the same fun, probing, sometimes messy questions that love teams are all too familiar with. That’s inclusion, too. Of course, the director has already coined a nickname for the pair: “EarlStel.”
“Dream ko talaga noon pa na magkaroon ng ‘JaDine,’ ‘KathNiel,’ or ‘DonBelle,’ pero actors with Down syndrome. Para ‘yong ibang may Down syndrome, makakita rin ng idol na kapareho nila—na puwedeng magmahal, puwedeng magkaroon ng love team sa mainstream,” Bernardo says.
“But it shouldn’t stop at awareness, and it shouldn’t stop with the movie,” she adds. “I want people to change their line of thinking from, ‘Kaya ba nila ‘to?’ to ‘Ano pa ang kaya nila?’ Malay mo, puwedeng rin silang mag-horror or mag-action. Hindi lang puro tungkol sa disability nila.”
