As the pikapika.ph team was setting up the lights and lenses for that day’s mini shoot, enter a quiet, reserved girl accompanied by viral film director Darryl Yap, who just got out of a meeting with one of Viva Entertainment’s executives.
After the Jowable director greeted the team, he introduced the young girl, who simply nodded and smiled at us before being asked to sit on the couch to pose for the cameras and be interviewed for her work as the intense, loud-mouthed girl from the VinCentiments Facebook page and YouTube channel’s KPL rant series where her character rants loudly about relatable events in school, work, and everyday public life.
KPL, by the way, stands for Kung P’wede Lang, and so far, Loren has starred in seven of these short films including the non-rant episode, No Rebound Philippines,
which was uploaded in December 2018.
Her debut starrer, KPL | Student Rant, uploaded in August 2018, has now, at press time, registered 21 million views on Facebook and 2.8 million on YouTube.
The rest include KPL | Hagguard (October 2019), KPL | Grand Face-Off (February 2019), KPL-Pa-Void (August 2019), KPL | Commuter Rant (December 2019), and KPL | Thesis Rant (February 2020).
Her KPL | Commuter Rant, for its part, records the most number of views at 39 million on Facebook and 5.2 million on YouTube; while her newly-uploaded KPL | Thesis Rant made its own record as the fastest to reach a million views on both platforms, with it even trending on YouTube at Number 3 after its first day of release and reaching No. 1 after three days. Today, after one month of release, the KPL | Thesis Rant has already amassed 22 million views on Facebook and 4.8 million views on YouTube.
But yes, the demure girl we just described and who starred in all of those is Loren Montemayor Mariñas. In front of the cameras, her coy persona disappears and
transforms into the ear-spitting, outspoken character who has had enough of the troubles she faces in different aspects of life, resulting in thunderous rants and quotable quotes.
When asked how she achieves such transformation, Loren explains that it is her theater background that helped her be this character far from her persona, which direk Darryl would describe as “virginal” during the interview.
“Sa teatro po kasi, may mga rules po kasi kami,” the viral star says. “Before po, sabi ni Direk [Darryl] na ‘Isipin mo lagi na hindi ka maganda, na may mas magandang taosa’yo so kung ano ’yong pinapagawa sa’yo, ’yon ’yong gagawin mo. Huwag kang magmaganda sa camera. Kung paano ka lang as natural na tao po sa camera, ’yon ka dapat.”
With every KPL video reaching millions of views in every upload, it is no wonder this viral star is the talk of the town. You can say that she is on cloud nine as being a
successful performer has always been a dream of hers.
PERFORMER AT HEART
Back when she was in kindergarten, Loren started to believe she had a knack for performing when she began volunteering for poetry contests, memorizing poems left and right and performing such in front of live audiences.
Jumping to junior high school, her passion for performing never faded, this time focusing on a more specific craft in the form of acting. And one school activity pushed her to become the actress that she is today.
“Sumali po ako ng speech choir [competition]. Doon ko po [na-realize na] ituloy-tuloy po ’yong pag-acting,” she recalls.
Joining the inter-high speech choir became the gateway for Loren to be discovered by the then-theater writer and film director Darryl Yap, who is the founder of SaWakas, an Olongapo-based theater production. They came to her school to provide workshops for speech choir competitions and theatrical plays.
When her seniors from her speech choir group graduated and left a mark by winning the inter-high speech competition, Loren and the remaining members had to defend the title so SaWakas and direk Darryl returned and gave them a workshop. The workshop also gave Darryl a chance to scout for possible actors for his theatre production, one of which was Loren.
“Kumukuha po sila ng mga estudyante sa school namin an gustong um-acting sa teatro,” she says. “Sumali po ako, sumama ako.”
After a series of workshops, Direk Darryl got to see Loren’s talent in the flesh during a recital for a play called Storm in Pag-Asa. The latter then went on joining more free workshops and recitals, until the director posed a question to her.
“Gusto mo ba maging part ng SaWakas or hindi?” Loren recalls him asking. “Tanong mo sa magulang mo.”
Her parents did not allow her, but that did not stop her from pursuing her passion. Then she went on being one of SaWakas’ actresses to being handpicked to play the girl in the now-viral KPL series we know today.
OUR RELATABLE RANTER
During a meeting with fellow members of the aforementioned theater production, Darryl had the idea of making a relatable rant video for students about their
teachers, inspired by the hardships students face in school.
Loren, who was originally scheduled to star in VinCentiments’ Duguang Singit short film, was handpicked instead to give life to the now-famous ranter of the KPL
series.
“Noong shoot na po, hinanap ko po ’yong script,” she recounts her first time onset of the VinCentiments video. To her surprise, direk Darryl was still in the process of writing it, when the video was about to be shot. Despite feeling lost on what to do without a script yet, Loren just went along.
Her parents got the surprise of their life after her 18th birthday when the KPL | Student Rant premiered on YouTube and Facebook, where there were scenes of her
shouting vulgar words and stripping to her underwear.
.
“Bakit ka nag-ga-ganyan? ‘Yan ba ’yong in-ano [tinuro] namin sa’yo?” she recalls her parents saying upon watching her first short film.
Loren, however, defended herself, saying that she does the same thing when she is on the beach (referring to her show of body). Eventually, her parents got the hang of her KPL portrayal and slowly accepted it.
“Sanayan na lang daw po,” she says in jest. “Sila na nga po nagtatanong kung ano ’yong next na tatanggalin ko, e.”
Before the video was uploaded, Loren was anxious to hear about the expectations of the viewers, because of VinCentiments’ reputation of having a number of viral
videos.
“’Yong susunod ba na gagawin, mag-va-viral ba?” she recalls asking herself. “‘Yong [expectations] po ng tao, kinakabahan po ako kung ano po ‘’yong magiging reaction nila, lalo na pa-wild nang pa-wild po every series po.”
When the video made waves in social media and was given positive feedback from the viewers, Loren felt at bliss, knowing how she made people happy with her chosen craft.
“Masaya po ako na nag-boom siya, na masaya naman ’yong mga tao sa nagawa ko po, na natuwa sila, na [na-meet] ko naman siguro ’yong expectations nila,” she
happily said.
The good reviews she received from her acting further pushed her to become better at the skill.
“Kung ’yong una mo po, magaling ka na, dapat as susunod mo, mas magaling ka pa,” she says. “Natutuwa naman po ako na marami pa rin pong nanunuod, sumuporta sa mga sumunod [na videos ko].”
Loren thinks that people watch their videos because they can easily relate to what they are doing there. They each strike a chord, so to speak.
“Yong ginagawa po namin, ’yong mga script po is normal na tao po ’yong nakaka-ramdam po, ’yong nararanasan po talaga ng normal na tao,” she explains about the KPL series’ virality. “Maraming nakaka-relate kasi pinagdaanan po nila. Nangyari [ito] sa kanila.”
She also revealed that people have messaged her online, thanking her for the videos and saying that they can relate to her character who has a lot of pent-up anger but cannot express it in real life.
“Marami pong nagme-message na ganoon nga po sila, na may galit po pero hindi po nila masabi,” she recounts. “Sana kaya ’din namin.”
Becoming a viral star was hard at first for Loren. She felt like she had to act a certain way that is all right for people, now that she is known by many.
“Naiiyak po ako. Ang hirap po kumilos, sobra,” she says. “Dahil kilala ka ng tao, dapat ‘yong galaw mo kailangan okey sa mga taong nakakakita, [‘yong] tanggap ng mga tao kung paano ka.”
However, slowly but surely, Loren started to realize that she does not have to change who she is to be accepted by people.
“’Di ko naman kailangang baguhin ’yong sarili ko para lang doon sa mga tao pong [hindi nakakakilala sa akin].” she explains.
While some have expressed their support towards her and her character, there are some who expressed their negative words towards Loren, mostly thinking that her KPL role is very much like her in real life. However, she puts on a different perspective when it comes to people who bash her.
“Nakakatulong po kasi sila para sa pagbibigay po sa [...] views namin,” she says. “And then sa relevance po.”
THE NEXT FOR KPL
As her KPL series remains to skyrocket to Internet superstardom, Loren says she will continue to star in such, with the next video about the troubles of going through graduating high school.
Apart from that, she will also have small roles in direk Darryl’s second and third feature film; namely Tililing starring Gina Pareño, Baron Geisler, Donnalyn Bartolome, and Chad Kinis, and Ang Babaeng Walang Pakiramdam starring Kim Molina and Jerald Napoles.
Things surely are shining bright for Loren, who started out as a young child who dreamt of being in the acting scene. Truly, she has made her dreams come true and we cannot wait to see her achieve more of her acting goals in the future. More power, Loren!
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