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 THE FUNNY MAN
The first time I saw Alec Mapa perform, he gave me a stomachache. It was during a musical interlude in his one-man show, An Evening With Alec Mapa, in which he twirled, beaming, through a Solid Gold dance routine while a pair of tragic, cigarette-smoking, too-big-for-their-hot pants male backup dancers stumbled behind him onstage. The audience was doubled over in hysterics. The bit ended as Mapa eventually realized how low-rent his backup dancers were—which was, as he would have it, a symptom of his professional career to date.
He shouldn’t have been so hard on himself. By that time, he already had a successful run on the UPN sitcom Half & Half and a very well received one-man show, I Remember Mapa. That show, which was a coming-out of sorts, was about his travails after he hit it big right out of NYU drama, getting cast in the Broadway production of M. Butterfly, originally as B.D. Wong’s understudy—and his perplexing dearth of roles afterwards.
“[I Remember Mapa] was the turning point for me,” the actor says on the phone today, rushing to make his call for the upcoming film You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, written by Hollywood’s new golden boy of comedy, Judd Apatow. “In terms of, I’m not going to worry about it anymore. And it’s so ironic that I always worried about the effect coming out would have on my career, when the truth turned out to be that I really didn’t have one until I did.”
He’s right. Since he came out, he landed the Half & Half role, guest appearances on many other sitcoms and rounded up last TV season with a recurring stint on Desperate Housewives, playing Eva Longoria’s close friend and personal shopper, Vern. (“Marc Cherry says I’ll be back this season!” he says.) And this fall, he nabbed a juicy recurring role on the hit show Ugly Betty, playing fashion reporter Suzuki St. Pierre.
“With me, it was the first authentic voice I had to offer,” he continues, regarding his coming-out. “It empowered me in a way I hadn’t realized, for the simple fact that it freed me up because I wasn’t worried about what other people thought anymore.”
Empowered so much, in fact, that his role on Ugly Betty recently marked another milestone in his career: he didn’t need to audition. In the phone-call-away style of those who’ve actually made it in the industry, he was asked last-minute to perform stand-up comedy at this year’s GLAAD awards in Los Angeles. Sitting in the audience was all of Hollywood, including Betty producer Marco Pennette and the show’s casting director. As Mapa explains, after he went offstage, the casting director turned to Pennette and said, “Well, that role is cast!”
“My goal is to get more work with as little effort as possible,” Mapa says winkingly. “So to be asked to do something is just the best thing ever. Without having to audition. It’s an embarrassment of riches, is what it is.”
Another first came this year when Mapa was asked to do a season’s worth of entertainment on the Atlantis gay cruise line. He had never been on one before—this year alone he’s been on six.
“I’ve gone all over the world,” he says, gushing about the experience. “[On the cruise], everybody’s really game about the prospect of creating a community where we’re so much nicer to each other than we are on land.” He also performed on Rosie O’Donnell’s R Family cruise line this year, which struck a chord with him since he and his partner, Jamison Hebert, are seriously exploring their options for adopting a child of their own.
“One day we’re going to look back on this time and think, Oh my God. Gay families had to go on a boat into the middle of the ocean in order to be themselves!” he says. Thankfully, he was able to enlist some high-powered help. “[Rosie]’s an absolutely devoted mother. When she found out that my partner and I are thinking of adopting, her eyes lit up, and she gave me her personal e-mail address and everything.”
This has been a good year for Mapa, and one thing that he’s learned through his ups and downs is how to put it all in perspective. “I think I have been really fortunate in that I have been helped along the way,” he explains. “I think the difference is that when I first started out, I saw my ethnicity and my sexuality as being disabilities. And now they’re assets. Because that’s something I have to offer that nobody else does.”
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Instinct Online 
written by Kirk on November 02, 2007
Love Alec, very funny
written by Bounma Chan on November 20, 2007
Alec Mapa, for me, is one of the greatest role models of our time.
written by tsk on December 06, 2007
How dare Instinct praise Alec Mapa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Desperate Housewives recently uttered a very derogatory, racist joke against Filipinos!!!!!!!!!!!!
Susan Mayer/Teri Hatcher questioned her doctor's degree and insultingly asked if it was from a med school in the Philippines!
That botox junkie still has not issued a public apology!
Yet people still downplay it as not being racist. If Susan said it was a school from Africa or a school with a predominantly black student body (Howard University), then everyone would agree the joke was racist. But since the targeted community (Filipinos) don't have a lot of clout, the joke is not considered racist by many white people.
Yet Alec Mapa, who last time I checked was Filipino, did not even take the show to task!!!!!!!!!!!
He defended the writers of DH in an interview saying the writers were probably "tired" (Ha!) and they are not racist at all (Hahhahahhahahahaha!). He went on to say that his father is very sensitive, thus implying Filipinos who reacted to the joke are overly sensitive!
You are no hero Alec Mapa! You are a sell out, choosing to stand up for the queer community yet not for the Filipino community!
So queer issues outweight racial ones?
Alec should not have been chosen for this heroes list. DH's money surgically removed his Filipino spine!
written by LBee on December 14, 2007
hey tsk, chill. so it was racist. Let it go. that's all in the past now. If you are truly proud of your ethnicity, then do something noble that will make your country proud. Anger doesn't solve anything.
written by LBee on December 14, 2007
Alec Mapa is doing a great job as a comedian. The reason why he is so successful now is that he has realised that his roots and sexuality are his greatest assets, not liabilities. Gratitude is the way to go.
written by tsk on December 16, 2007
The person in question is not me LBee, it's Alec Mapa. I am proud of my Filipino ethnicity but Alec Mapa clearly isn't since he doesn't have the balls to take the DH writers to task for such an offensive joke. He chose to side with them and justify the racist joke, which actually caused a media firestorm in the Philippines.
Alec Mapa should have just kept his highly paid trap shut than betray other Filipinos with his lame defense of the DH writers. Perhaps he feels like it wasn't offensive since his lover is white, and identifies with and feels the same way as those white writers of DH. But Alec is no hero to Filipinos everywhere for defending a racially derogatory comment against his OWN race! Only a traitor does that and only an idiot thinks it's okay for his own race to be discriminated against!
All his fame within the queer community has gotten to his head and blurred his judgment. Mapa is only a Filipino when it's convenient for him. He can't have his cake and eat it too. Clearly only queer issues matter to him, thus he's a shame and disgrace to Filipinos everywhere. As a celebrity, he can make a difference with the way Filipinos and Asians are perceived. This derogatory, racist incident on DH was Mapa's perfect opportunity to speak on behalf of Filipinos everywhere and on behalf of all offended Filipinos that signed the petition against DH! He chose not to. A queer Filipino that chooses to support queer issues but not Filipinos is not a hero, he is a COWARD.