Diego Loyzaga entered showbiz as a teen, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since acting is in his genes. Since his debut, he jumped from one teleserye set to another and grew a lot as an actor.

In this episode of Kapamilya Chat, he looked back on his memorable teleserye stints through the years.

Diego couldn’t stop cringing while watching the first clip from Mara Clara (2011) where he reprised the role portrayed by Rico Yan in the original series. In the clip, his character saved Kathryn Bernardo’s Mara from the bullies, leading to a ‘kilig’ moment between them.

“Was I awkward or not?” he reacted, noting his ‘twang’ in the way he delivered his dialogue. “I couldn’t speak Tagalog.” He thought there were more masculine-looking 15-year-old actors than he was back then, and also because of his conyo speech, he rated himself a “negative five out of ten.”

He said that whenever his friends and siblings introduce him to new people, they’d ask them to search his name on the internet and the first things that appear are his old clips from ABS-CBN shows. He’d feel shy and awkward, and at the same time, he’s proud of his beginnings.

“That’s the foundation. Those were the building blocks that made me who I am today. As cringe as it is, I have to be proud,” he thanked his former directors and bosses, as well as the viewers who supported his earliest projects. He has come a long way – this, he’s sure of.

Diego’s chemistry with Kathryn was surprisingly mesmerizing that they shared screen again via Pangako Sa’Yo (2015). He was shown a video of him on a hospital bed, begging Kathryn’s Yna to love him back.

These old videos are giving Diego loads of good vibes. He burst into laughter, this time, because of his awkward-looking nostrils. “I hate it but it’s my nose,” he reacted. For this dramatic scene, he credits the music and Kathryn’s effortless acting, “Of course, Kathryn Bernardo doesn’t even have to speak pero damang-dama mo siya. And it was my scene. I was supposed to carry the scene but it was Kathryn who carried,” he remarked. He rated himself 2/10 for that.

In a scene with Sam Concepcion, Julia Barretto, and Enrique Gil in Mirabella (2014), Diego noted he added a bit of weight. He was more comfortable with acting, and proof is his natural expression and line delivery, “It may be because I was happy with my physique. I think my voice was a bit lower there also.”

Another reason Mirabella is memorable is because he got close with his co-stars, “I remember a lot of dead time on the set, so parang lagi kaming nag-uusap. Naging magkakaibigan talaga kami outside of taping. And overall, that was a very good project for me.” Since it was quite a short scene, he only gave himself a score of 5/10.

The next clip was a confrontation with Enrique, with Liza Soberano caught in the middle, in a scene from Forevermore (2014), which he considers his first big break. “Everything changed for me because of that,” he thanked ABS-CBN, director Cathy Garcia-Molina, and all LizQuen fans for accepting him as a part of their idols’ project.

“Direk Cathy is a genius – hands down! She really made that role suit me. There are instances na nangyayari talaga ‘yun, I think in Hollywood movies that we watch, more so than usual, what you see is how they edit it to make the artista look good. I think in this, they really made me look good and I’m very happy with that,” he revealed.

Forevermore is truly one for the books for Diego, so much so he felt sad when it ended. “We we’re all in Baguio, nag-taping kami sa Baguio talagang lock-in kami… Overall, that was a fun experience. I learned a lot because of that,” he added that his talent fee from Forevermore was his first savings. “That was a big part of my life, definitely,” he related, then gave the scene a 6/10 rating.

Asked about his process as an actor, Diego admitted there could be distractions on the set, for example, a barking dog or a defective light. That’s why he believes acting is repetition. It’s a combination of instinct, spontaneity, and practice. “When you do a certain thing over and over again so repetitively, you become really good at it and I think when I’m always working, I’m good,” he admitted that he feels rusty whenever he takes a long hiatus from acting.

Of letting go of a character, he explained that it depends on many factors. Thankfully, he hasn’t yet played a character that affected his mental health, though sometimes he tends to carry a character’s emotions after. He thinks it’s a different process for every actor. There’s no one-size-fits-all technique in acting.

Of course, we couldn’t leave out Diego’s “Potpot” era. Even he admitted that Pusong Ligaw (2017) was an amazing time in his career. The Kapamilya series was well-loved by the audience, and he and Sofia Andres gained legions of fans as a loveteam. It was a huge success; however, Diego acknowledged that his skills needed more fine-tuning then. He even thought that he performed better in the “Forevermore” scene than in this one.

We are each our own worst critic sometimes, but this could also mean that we're only are eager to do better next time. Clearly, Diego isn’t one to rest on his laurels, which is a quality that pushes an actor further.