NICCO LOCO, the Italian-Canadian model who now lives in Manila to cultivate an acting career, has been officially signed up as a Viva contract star.
Nico first came to Manila in 2017.
“I came for a project with Nadine Lustre but I decided to stay on because I fell in love with the culture and the Filipinos who are so welcoming,” he says.
“From the moment I came here, I never felt awkward in anyway.”
This despite a sad incident where he was robbed by riding-in-tandem robbers who assaulted him and stole his cellphone.
“It was traumatic but those guys are more of an exception as most Filipinos are very nice,” he says.
He has since appeared in TV shows like “Wagas”, “Victor Magtanggol”, “Tadhana”, “Daddy’s Girl” and in films like “Culion” and “Sabado”, also the Korean film “Byeonshin”.
He was last seen in the BL series “Love at the End of the World”, written and directed by Shandii Bacolod, his manager.
They were together in Bangkok when Shandii suddenly passed due to heart attack on June 8.
“Shandii was very close to me as my manager so I’d rather not talk about the details of her passing,” he says.
“He gave me a big break playing an American soldier in ‘Culion’ and I’ve always admired her work ethics as producer and director. I was deeply saddened when she left so suddenly.”
“Love at the End of the World” is being streamed on Vivamax and now, he’s officially under contract with Viva.
“I am humbled and I’m just so happy to be managed by Viva,” he says.
“This is something new as I don’t think they have signed up a foreigner before as one of their contract stars.
"Hopefully, they will soon give me good projects and I will then be seeing a lot of more of you, press people, in the future.”
In “Love at the End of the World”, he appears in the episode “We Need to Talk About Tony”.
He plays a depressed American who came to Manila to end his life, but he meets a young man who gives him hope, played by Gold Azeron.
Their episode was talked about because he had a nude scene where he is shown diving underwater without a stitch on.
“This is the first show where I show everything,” he says.
“It’s my first frontal nudity scene and I’m very proud of what I have.
"I knew I was supposed to do it in our agreement with our director. The underwater scene took more than six hours to shoot and I was exposed all the time but I had no complaints.”
Is he willing to do more of such revealing scenes in Vivamax projects that are noted for their unabashed sex scenes?
“Okay lang but the material has to be good,” he says.
“I won’t do it just for the sake of baring. The role has to be good, very challenging, and I should be able to trust the director and how he’d treat the material.”
