"The Bottoming Process" explores the relationship woes of a young Fil-Am writer in an original play in Los Angeles. ABS-CBN's Hollywood Correspondent Yong Chavez speaks to the Filipino talents behind the story that has gotten critics' raves. #TFCNews Like and follow TFC News Facebook: https://facebook.com/TFCNewsNow Twitter: https://twitter.com/TFCNewsNow Website: https://mytfc.com/news News website: https://news.abs-cbn.com/tfcnews Subscribe to the ABS-CBN News channel! - http://bit.ly/TheABSCBNNews Watch full episodes on iWantTFC for FREE here: http://iwanttfc.com Visit our website at http://news.abs-cbn.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscbnnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abscbnnews

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Award-winning Broadway performer George Salazar is the lead star of the stage play, The Bottoming Process.

Salazar shares the stage with Rick Cosnett in a story that deals with modern-day relationship issues

and honestly depicts gender politics and racial stereotypes.

Salazar explains how he related to Milo, his Filipino-American character.

What I love about Milo is that he's imperfect. He's messy. He makes mistakes. He learns from his mistakes.

I mean what we're doing is telling a really universal story that's like really relatable

but we're telling it through the lens of the Filipino-American existence.

I spent a long time kind of chasing after this dream man, you know, like he's got to be tall and white.

We're still decolonizing our minds.

The Philippines went through, you know, hundreds of years of Spanish colonization and conquering, right?

It's like it's kind of, it's a part of our generational trauma. We carry that with us whether we know it or not.

The actor also played George Conway on TV in American Crime Story Impeachment

and also appeared for two seasons in NBC's Superstore.

The Bottoming Process was written by Nicolas Pilapil and it is his first full production project.

He shares that he started the story as a romantic comedy.

As America grappled with social issues in the last couple of years,

he felt compelled to include some aspects that he learned as the country was changing.

Writing it as Filipino-American, you know, who am I based off of what I do and what I experience

and less than who am I based off of my family's trauma or my family's sacrifices

which there's nothing wrong with telling those stories but I think we know those stories.

And so what I'm really trying to explore is what makes me, me.

What's been so wonderful is people come up to me afterwards and they're like,

thank you for writing my story. And I'm like, oh, did I do that?

You know, I'm like, I always say like, I'm so sorry that this is your story because it's kind of rough.

It kind of goes there. It's a lot of heartbreak.

And yeah, just hearing that and knowing that by me being myself, other people are able to see themselves.

It's kind of touching and meaningful and something I didn't plan out to do but it's a nice surprise.

The play has gotten rave reviews from critics and is hailed for its insightful take

on interracial relationships and identity politics.

The bottoming process is directed by film actor-director Rodney To.

A veteran actor in Hollywood, To was also one of the Filipino cast members of the movie Easter Sunday.

You know, I remember when I was young being like, oh my gosh, it was exciting.

But this is exciting in a way. It's accelerated, right?

Because not only are the projects available, but we're finally playing ourselves in all these complex characters.

We're playing ourselves. We're playing different versions of ourselves.

We're now starting to see many of us in the same project.

Whereas it was always just one. That's how we all became friends, right?

We became friends because we were all in the same waiting rooms and we were all fighting for the same one opportunity, right?

That's how many of us, the Reggie Lees of the world and Alec Mapos and John-John Briones,

we were all coming into a world, into a time when we were just, we were hoping that we were that one person getting that one track.

The bottoming process is playing at the Los Angeles LGBT Center's Renberg Theater till June 12.

Yoang Chavez, ABS-CBN News, here in Hollywood.

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