\n<\/p>\n
When asked to list a few of his favorite leading men, Manny Jacinto<\/strong> has no problem rattling off names: Dev Patel<\/a>, Pedro Pascal<\/a>, Steven Yeun<\/a>,<\/strong> his childhood favorite, Keanu Reeves<\/a>.<\/strong> \u201cGuys who have not only done great work, but have created work for themselves\u2014those are the guys that I aspire to be,\u201d says Jacinto, looking summery in a white T-shirt and baseball cap while sitting in front of a sunny window in his California home.<\/p>\n For a long time, Jacinto\u2014a Canadian actor born in the Philippines\u2014didn\u2019t consider himself a part of this coalition. Why? \u201cI mean, the lack of people that looked like me when I was growing up,\u201d he says with a shrug. \u201cEven to this day, it\u2019s still not that easy to see people who look like me who are leading men.\u201d<\/p>\n After playing lovable, dim-witted Jason Mendoza on NBC\u2019s The Good Place<\/em><\/a> from 2016 to 2020, Jacinto did more supporting work in the first season of Hulu\u2019s Nine Perfect Strangers,<\/em> as well as comedic indies like I Want You Back<\/em> and Cora Bora.<\/em> He was largely cut from 2022\u2019s Top Gun: Maverick<\/a>,<\/em> a move that rankled<\/a> legions of Jacinto fans. \u201cEspecially within the Filipino community, so many families go into the Navy and are super proud,\u201d he says now. \u201cAnd I think they want to be represented as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Both successes and setbacks reinforced Jacinto\u2019s idea that he\u2019d never quite be cast as the main character. \u201cYou start to ingrain ideas of what the world is supposed to be. So when there aren\u2019t that many guys who look like me in media,\u201d he says, \u201cthere\u2019s this innate feeling\u2014this negative talk that\u2019s constantly in my head like, \u2018You shouldn\u2019t be doing this. This is stupid. This isn\u2019t worth fighting for.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That all changes in Freakier Friday<\/a>,<\/em> a sequel to 2003\u2019s Freaky Friday<\/em> that reunites Jamie Lee Curtis<\/strong><\/a> and Lindsay Lohan<\/strong><\/a> as body-swapping mother Tess and daughter Anna. Jacinto plays Eric, the widowed British chef Anna falls for\u2014and, as luck would have it, the father of Lily (Sophia Hammons<\/strong>), the teenage archnemesis of Anna\u2019s daughter Harper (Julia Butters<\/strong><\/a>). \u201cMan, am I that old now?\u201d the 37-year-old actor thought upon receiving the role. \u201cI was having a bit of a midlife crisis. But I have gotten to that point where I can play a young dad, so it was eye-opening. I\u2019m not a father in real life yet, but it was good practice. It could take a couple more years.\u201d<\/p>\n Like millions of millennials, Jacinto grew up watching Lohan\u2019s movies. But when he revisited Freaky Friday<\/em> as an adult, he realized something: \u201cThis did not age well,\u201d says Jacinto. Alongside director Nisha Ganatra,<\/strong> he saw Freakier Friday<\/em> as an opportunity to right \u201churtful stereotypes<\/a>\u201d of the Asian community that appear in the 2003 movie. \u201cThat was the first thing that we talked about. We wanted to make sure that we don\u2019t follow those same tropes and have some cultural respect,\u201d he says. \u201cI had nothing but trust that we would stay away from those stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n The sequel ups the ante by conjuring a four-way body switch involving Anna, Tess, Harper, and Lily. Jacinto\u2019s Eric is meant to be the calm in that storm. \u201cYou just wanted to find a husband character that felt grounded, that has heart, with those small moments of comedy sprinkled in,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a huge compliment that [Ganatra] would trust me, because I didn\u2019t know if I believed that myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n