Following a hiatus from the limelight, Kit Thompson strikes back, better than ever. This time, he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon as he charges on to the future a trove of stories to tell.
Fire up a Google search with your name and depending on your internet connection, watch as the results trickle in from exact, related, and even head-scratching far-fetched results in less than a blink of an eye. Come on, don’t even act as if you haven’t done this or even so much as entertained the curdling curiosity before. Whatever affront of enlightenment, elucidation, and education you swish around, it becomes increasingly clear that the underlying force that compels us to have a look at our virtual imprint, aside from narcissism, which really needs no threshing out, is that anonymity no longer exists.
Sure, you can hide behind a fake name, a faceless profile photo, or even a bogus personality, but that still intrinsically means you have embedded a digital footprint on your own accord. Scroll through that page again and notice how there is a connection to everything, a presence somewhere, a mention here and there. Living in the paradigm that we do today has allowed us to tread two worlds all at once. Where we journey through reality as just a face in the crowd filing through the drudgeries and drear of the everyday, we also exist as someone or something completely different in the vast virtual void. While some would argue that this has increased the opportunities to be an unnamed unknown, especially online, but these pockets of reality and fragments of humanity become so elusive and tainted that it ultimately encourages the veil of anonymity to slip from our very hands.
Needless to say, at some point, and in varying exponential increments, you are something to someone.
This case of digital hide-and-seek manifests itself the most when you are a celebrity of any sort actually. Fascinating as it may seem, especially for us mere mortals awed by the faintest glint of a buffed out veneer, people indoctrinated by fame essentially lose who they really are as their name and brand gets peddled for just about anything. Getting increasingly hard to keep a low profile or live a semblance of a normal, private life, these personalities eventually rescind an initial resistance when their star gets progressively brighter. It’s part and parcel of the job, they would remind themselves, completely owing up to the gratification that their supporters have built for them to be where they are.
However, things are a bit different for Kit Thompson, who despite being a by-product of what is arguably one of the country’s biggest reality TV shows, Pinoy Big Brother, is still enjoying a fair amount of liberation as an actor in this celebrity-obsessed country.
All On His Own
This isn’t to say that he is barely a blip in the radar, because Kit Thompson is quite the presence on and offline.
In person, he easily towers over the crowd of average Asian height, already immediately singling him out as a sore thumb. Online, he has recently enjoyed a swelling surge of nostalgic hashtag: throwback when a video of him visibly restraining himself to explode emotionally and say…bad words made the rounds on the internet as a meme, a gif, a shrewd reply to a conversation. So, yes, the world knows of him. However, drawing up a comprehensive study of him would prove to be inconclusive as there are barely any substantial hyperlinks to him. Sure, there are more than a handful of clickbait articles on reacting to that clip, a brush with the law that forced him to recalibrate his career path, and a couple of stories that in earnest try to figure out the man that he is, as well as of the craft that he has chosen to really throw himself at. (He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. What he has is an imdb page, which is far more impressive.)
“I’m not quite sure how people see me,” he wonders. “I do try and avoid trying to do the same thing over and over again.” Trite as it may sound, this explains a whole lot on the enigma that is Kit Thompson.
Rifling through his professional résumé, one that has been momentarily stalled when he decided to fly to New York and study Acting for Film at the New York Film Academy, as well as taking master classes at Susan Batson Studios, will reveal a hardworking list that is formidable by most standards. Despite taking a break from the local industry, already showing great promise in films such as #Y and in TV series like Kahit Puso Mo’y Masugatan and Forevermore, he is slowly and surely stacking up acting credits that are building up his name to one to watch out for since his return to the scene. He chalks this keep-on-going attitude to his stint in New York and Los Angeles, where he has noticed a couple of similarities and differences working on short films and such. “I feel that the competition would be the biggest challenge since there hundreds of others just like you or better,” he points of the dose of truth he had to stomach while out of his comfort zone in the Philippines where he could have easily been the next big thing in show business. “The best advice I got was to keep working and keep on going to auditions every day, whether it’s a big role or a small one, whether it’s a student film or a major movie. I would send my résumé and reel to audition. Doing this not only kept me busy, but it also kept me sharp in my craft.”
More determined than before, Kit Thompson made sure he took on every possible opportunity for him to flex what he has learned and the experiences he has accumulated over the years. “I usually throw myself at roles I haven’t done yet,” he begins. “But I usually feel the pressure getting a new role since it’s unknown ground to me. However, that’s when you actually get to discover and make choices to try out.” This credibility and know-how has been evidenced in the string of works he has taken part of such as The Hows Of Us, MOMOL Nights, Unbreakable, and in teleseryes like Sino Ang May Sala: Mea Culpa and Maalala Mo Kaya.
Whether it be a former flame that leaves a protagonist jilted, a lawyer and NBI agent in an ensemble of stirring contemporaries, or a man whose life is scarred by reckless choices in his quest for love, affection, and independence, there is no role that he wouldn’t sink his teeth in. Clearly, he wants to make something of himself that is beyond the surface and physical that is often expected of him. An explosive force onscreen, he takes command of the scenes he is in, essaying the necessary truth of his character. Primal one moment and passionate the next, he is able to get a grip on the ironies and emotional shifts that flesh out the reality of the role.
“Honestly, I feel grateful that I’ve been given the chance to play different characters and have some fun,” he says, the most recent one being his turn as Josh opposite the stellar Mylene Dizon in the 2019 Cinemalaya entry, Belle Douleur (Beautiful Pain), which was by most accounts, his biggest, boldest break yet.
Tell The Story
At this point, Kit Thompson realizes that he will have to relinquish a bit more of his anonymity, especially since it is obvious that he will go places from here on out. After all, he is clearly a banging force to be reckoned with. He doesn’t really mind, especially since he keeps a good fraction of himself tucked away from the world to see and ogle at. What he does consider though is how he will have more of a scope to affect and make an effect, which is something close to his heart, especially with the amount of growing up he had to alone in the big entertainment cities with blindingly lit marquees in the United States. “To anyone who would want to take a stab at their dreams similar to mine, or whatever it is, I’d say, keep working towards your goal and have fun along the way,” he says, that mischievous grin growing in his cherubic face shadowed by a grown man stubble.
As he looks at life through the lens of the new year, we wonder if in his journey of constant spontaneous movements, is this where he wants to be? “I’m happy where I am right now,” he shares. “The Kit that left was hungry for knowledge, and I don’t think I’ve changed since. But the only way is up for me, and I cannot wait where else this story takes me.”
By Angelo Ramirez De Cartagena
Photography Shaira Luna
Creative direction Jann Pascua
Styling Angelo Ramirez De Cartagena
Grooming Posh Torres
Shoot coordination Thea Martin
Shoot assistant Jemy Sta. Ana and Joy Almero
Special thanks to Cornerstone Entertainment Inc.
