Dennis Gaviola

Article (news)

Yong

Yong Chavez

ABS-CBN News North America

Jacob Batalon appears on-screen wearing glasses, a pink ball cap, a dark jacket over white shirt, and his trademark affable grin.“Auntie! How are you?” he says cheerfully. We’ve spoken before, enough times for this kind of genuine and easy familiarity. He laughs quickly, fills silences faster, and steers the conversation toward levity. It’s the same instinct that has made him one of Hollywood’s dependable scene-stealers.Batalon is promoting &quot;The Wrecking Crew,&quot; a buoyant, action-heavy comedy set in Hawaii, where he stars alongside Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista.“It was my first time really getting to go back and work on a movie back home,” he says, as if savoring the word “home.” Hawaii is where Batalon lived before his family relocated to New York. “And having the chance to go there for free, because, you know, Hawaii is really expensive,” he adds, laughing. “It was a really, really fun time.”Before they worked together in &quot;The Wrecking Crew,&quot; Bautista — who is also Filipino — teased Batalon whenever their paths would cross as Avengers-MCU stars. “Every time he’d be like, ‘Oh, Jacob, you know I’m part-Filipino too, right? Why are you so short?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, because I’m not half-white, Dave. Sorry, bro.’” Batalon shares, cackling.“It really felt like I was working with my big kuyas.” With Bautista and Momoa, he felt like he was with family, hence the Tagalog word for older brother.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1769775848376the-wrecking-crew-WRCW_2025_UT_250117_LACJAS_10471R_CropC_rgb.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Jacob Batalon with Dave Bautista in &#x27;The Wrecking Crew.&#x27; Amazon MGM</div>Batalon, 29, has spent a lot of his public life orbiting other stars — Tom Holland and Zendaya, with whom he became globally recognizable in the Spider-Man films, Bautista and Momoa, action-movie titans, a constellation of directors, writers, and producers who have shaped his thriving career — but he is also adept at forging his own path. His lead performance in Syfy’s &quot;Reginald the Vampire&quot; earned praise. Through it all, he remains preternaturally grounded, tethered to family, heritage, and a steady gratitude.“When I was a kid, I never imagined I’d be in a big movie, and then have it be in Hawaii, too,” he says of playing Pika in &quot;The Wrecking Crew.&quot; “So many things have to go right for other people to make this movie, and for them to want me to be a part of it. I’m just so lucky.”Luck, in Batalon’s telling, is never passive. He shows up ready to work hard every time. Humility has long been part of his public persona, noted in profiles since his breakout in 2017’s &quot;Spider-Man: Homecoming,&quot; where his portrayal of Peter Parker’s best friend, Ned Leeds, quickly became a fan favorite. Critics praised his comic timing, and audiences responded to the earnestness beneath it.\That openness surfaces most unexpectedly in a moment from &quot;The Wrecking Crew,&quot; when his character makes an offhand comment about having alopecia. The line, Batalon says, was improvised. “That was definitely not in the script,” he laughs. Director Soto encouraged riffing, and the joke slipped out casually, but its resonance lingered.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1769775905699file pic red carpet.png" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Jacob Batalon doing a red carpet interview. File photo</div>Batalon has lived with alopecia since middle school. “I got sick one day in seventh grade, and then all of a sudden I started losing my hair,” he recalls. “It would grow back sometimes, and then it kind of just stopped.” Eventually, his brother suggested shaving it all off. “It just never really grew back. But I’m not really worried about hair. Getting ready in the morning, hair is taken out of the equation.” He says all this with a smile.Publicly, he has mentioned the condition before, though rarely at length. He shares it in our interview matter-of-factly. The alopecia reference in the film isn’t a punch line but a way of normalizing something that is just one part of Batalon’s life.Representation is both personal and political, though he tends to frame it in human terms. Early in his career, many assumed he was Hawaiian. “Even Filipino people were like, ‘There’s no way he’s Filipino,’” he says. “Now that they know, it’s validating. I feel like I get to represent people who are never really seen before.”That visibility matters. Bautista, who grew up without seeing Filipino faces on American screens, has spoken about how surreal it feels to share that space now. On &quot;The Wrecking Crew,&quot; the behind-the-scenes Filipino crew included entertainment industry veterans like stunt coordinator and assistant director Jon Valera, whom Batalon describes with affection: “He reminded me of my uncle. We could be related.”Family, in all its forms, is a recurring theme. He shares that his relatives cheer him on from afar, even when his projects involve broken noses or vampire transformations. In 2025, he also got bloody with Jack Quaid in &quot;Novocaine.&quot; “They try to watch my movies,” he says, “but sometimes it’s a little gory. I don’t know how they’re going to watch me with a broken nose. They might have a panic attack.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1769775806554the-wrecking-crew-WRCW_2025_UT_241022_LACJAS_02456R_CropC_rgb.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Jacob Batalon with Jason Momoa in &#x27;The Wrecking Crew.&#x27; Amazon MGM</div>If his family keeps him anchored, his friendships have kept him steady. Batalon, Holland, and Zendaya were all teenagers when &quot;Homecoming&quot; premiered. They grew up in public, their lives unfolding under an unforgiving spotlight. “We’ve seen each other come up and become who we are,” he says. “Having that support and still having our bond, it’s been a blessing.”Recently, that bond has extended into adulthood in unmistakable ways. Batalon is engaged to Veronica Leahov, and the joy in his voice is unfiltered. “I feel way too lucky,” he says. “I have a great job and a great fiancée who supports me and loves everything that I do. When I struggle, she pushes me and motivates me to be better for myself and for us.” He pauses, then jokes that Holland and Zendaya “stole my idea about getting engaged. It’s okay. No one’s keeping score.”What emerges, over the course of the conversation, is a portrait of someone still surprised by his own life. In our interview in 2019, he shared how, just years earlier, he told his mom that he wanted to go to a random talent workshop, thinking he would be a singer, and not realizing that that one brave act would lead him to &quot;Spider-Man.&quot;The Marvel fame, the action franchises, the genre-hopping roles have not calcified into entitlement, something I’ve seen way too often in a decade and a half of covering Hollywood. Instead, they seem to have sharpened his sense of contingency -- that everything could have gone differently -- making him grateful for everything.“Jacob was the first choice for that character from the moment I read it,” says &quot;The Wrecking Crew&quot; director Ángel Manuel Soto. “I was in New York doing some research for something else, and I just wanted to meet him and offer him the role.”As our conversation winds down, the Filipino-American actor offers no grand thesis about success or identity but circles back to gratitude: toward collaborators, family, heritage, and the unpredictable chain of events that placed him here, in a pink hat, smiling into a screen. It is, perhaps, the most Jacob Batalon ending imaginable: understated, generous, and grounded in the belief that joy, like luck, multiplies when shared.<div> </div><div>RELATED  VIDEO:</div><div><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PtQI142-FJ8?autoplay=1&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> </div>

The Fil-Am actor opens up on working with “Kuya” Dave Bautista, living with alopecia, finding the love of his life, and his lasting friendship with Tom Holland and Zendaya.

The Fil-Am actor opens up on working with “Kuya” Dave Bautista, living with alopecia, finding the love of his life, and his lasting friendship with Tom Holland and Zendaya.

Here in Hollywood: Jacob Batalon is grateful

News

Entertainment

Lifestyle

Sports

Metro.Style

More

BINI

Sudoku

Word of the Day

Lotto

Horoscope

Movies & Series

Here in Hollywood: Jacob Batalon is grateful

Yong Chavez,

ABS-CBN News North America

Published January 30, 2026 09:04 PM PHT

Read More:

The Wrecking Crew

Jacob Batalon

Yong Chavez

Here in Hollywood

ABS-CBN Newsletter

Your go-to source for the latest news, entertainment highlights, exclusive interviews, and updates on your favorite Kapamilya stars.

ABS-CBN Newsletter

Your go-to source for the latest news, entertainment highlights, exclusive interviews, and updates on your favorite Kapamilya stars.

Sign Up

I have read and agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy.

ABS-CBN is the leading media and entertainment company in the Philippines, offering quality content across TV, radio, digital, and film. Committed to public service and promoting Filipino values, ABS-CBN continues to inspire and connect audiences worldwide.

Corporate

Investors

Governance

International Distribution

Corporate

Governance

Investors

International Distribution

NPC Seal of Registration

Privacy Policy

AI Policy

Terms of Service

Advertise with Us

© 2026 ABS-CBN Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

NPC Seal of Registration

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

AI Policy

Advertise with Us

© 2026 ABS-CBN Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

NPC Seal of Registration

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

AI Policy

Advertise with Us

© 2026 ABS-CBN Corporation. All Rights Reserved.