DARREN CRISS

ACTOR

By every indication possible, perhaps no one had a more exceptionally great year than Darren Criss. Proving to be a first for a Filipino-American actor, he amassed a handful of acting awards for his chilling and eerily accurate depiction of Andrew Cunanan in the critically acclaimed The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, including the coveted trifecta of a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. “As we’ve seen, it’s been a marvelous year for representation in Hollywood. And I’m so enormously proud to be a teeny tiny part of that as the son of a firecracker Filipina woman from Cebu that dreamed of coming to this country and getting to be invited to cool parties like this,” Darren Criss says during his Golden Globe acceptance speech. “So mom, I know you’re watching this. You are hugely responsible for all the good things in my life. I dedicate this to you.”

Having climbed the rungs of the entertainment industry on that side of the world, Darren Criss has come a very long way from co-founding StarKid Productions, a musical theater company that accorded him the opportunity to portray the bespectacled boywho-lived in A Very Potter Musical, A Very Potter Sequel, and A Very Potter Senior Year, from which he was tipped to enter the life-changing role of Blaine Anderson in Glee. However, it was his turn in Ryan Murphy’s imagination of the news making assassination of Gianni Versace that really solidified him as a bonafide star, making him a notable figure in the continuing narrative of representation in Hollywood. “Between you and I, it’s just a wonderful thing to be able to talk about and shed light on Filipinos in entertainment,” he reflects in an interview with ABS-CBN correspondent Yong Chavez. “And that’s been a really, really fun bonus for me in this entire experience.”—ARDC