Joem Bascon makes his mark

Joem—which is short for Jose Emmanuel—isn’t your typical showbiz newbie. He never wanted to become an actor, and didn’t grow up nursing dreams of fame. But there’s no denying destiny. No matter how much you try to escape it, it follows you, and that’s what happened to Joem.

He was ‘discovered’ by director Jerry Sineneng during a taping of Hiram at a property owned by Joem’s family in Antipolo. Joem was crossing the property to get to the main house when he was spotted by the director. “He asked me if I wanted to enter showbiz,” relates Joem. “Although I never really planned on it, I thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’ I thought it would be a fun thing to do.”

He started attending acting workshops at ABS-CBN. Maybe Direk Jerry really did see something in him because before long, the offers started coming—and, to date, have never stopped. Currently, Joem is seen regularly on the youth-oriented sitcom Let’s Go (which is being reformatted and will be back on the air next month as Go Kada Go, starring Kim Chiu and Gerald Anderson, Eda Nolan and Charie Pineda). He also has a featured role in the primetime soap Walang Kapalit.

Of his two shows, Joem enjoys Let’s Go more because it’s a comedy. Walang Kapalit, aside from being his first drama, was also his first show on primetime. But that won’t be for long, since Go Kada Go will also move up to a primetime slot when it returns to the air this June.

Joem knows that as a beginner in showbiz, he still has a long way to go. He is under no illusions that just because he looks like Piolo Pascual, that he will be as successful as he is. “There is no basis for comparison,” he says. “He’s Piolo, and people know him, whereas me, I’m still in the process of making a way for people to know me and what I can do. I want to distinguish myself and become known for my own talents.”

As Joem charts his path to fame in showbusiness, he relies heavily on the advice coming from his most favorite person in the whole world: his mother. Yes, Joem is a self-confessed mama’s boy. Last Mother’s Day, he gave his mom a bouquet of flowers and a gift. “We’ve always been very close; I tell her everything [that’s going on with me],” he says.