Manny Jacinto distinctly remembers the first time he was ever recognized in public for his work on The Good Place. He was at Disneyland, waiting in a long line to take a picture with Mulan, when a young woman suddenly turned around and asked, “Excuse me, are you Manny?” Within a matter of minutes, a second line had clumsily formed, diverging from the Disney princess and converging in front of the incredulous Filipino-Canadian actor.
“I’ll always remember that moment,” Jacinto tells Men’s Health in a recent Zoom interview from his home in Los Angeles. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to be normal when somebody asks for a picture or an autograph. It’s all so weird.”
For four seasons on the hit NBC afterlife sitcom, Jacinto played Jason Mendoza, the affable, dim-witted Floridian DJ who had an affinity for his dance crew and the former Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles. The role launched Jacinto, a relatively unknown actor with a handful of guest-star appearances on shows like Once Upon a Time and Supernatural, into stardom—and made his chiseled jawline the subject of much adoration on social media.
More than a year after that show’s series finale aired, Jacinto has nothing but fond memories of working with the likes of Michael Schur, Ted Danson, and Kristen Bell—seasoned veterans who not only helped him recognize his own value as a performer but also led by example as “genuine, kind human beings on-set and off-set.” While he might not be able to speak to the legacy of his EDM-obsessed character, instead choosing to view him as part of a larger ensemble, the 33-year-old actor notes that the show’s questions of life and morality, paired with its comedic and optimistic nature, are what continue to resonate with audiences from around the world.
“I want to say that [Jason] put Florida on the map, but I feel like Florida just does that to itself on the news every week with some sort of crazy, random Florida man anecdote or story,” Jacinto adds with a laugh. “Jason’s M.O. was just a sense of childlike openness and positivity. And if anything, hopefully, he’s just provided that kind of glimmer of optimism for other people.”
But while he's certainly open to revisiting the universe that launched his career in the future—maybe with a reunion between Jason Mendoza and Pillboi—Jacinto also knew that he might be pigeonholed in the industry if he resigned himself to simply one type of character. “Give me some time to maybe exercise some other muscles, because this industry, man, it can really pin you down and put you in a box if you’re not careful,” he says.
In his first major TV roles since finishing The Good Place—both a stark contrast to his “high-energy” portrayal of Jason Mendoza—Jacinto plays calm and collected characters caught in the eye of the storm. There's Code, a drug-dealing friend of the protagonist in Netflix’s horror drama Brand New Cherry Flavor, and then there's Yao, the right-hand man at an enigmatic wellness retreat, in Hulu’s drama miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers.
Based on the novel of the same name by Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers follows a group of stressed city dwellers who enter a retreat at Tranquillum House, a secluded health-and-wellness resort that promises healing and transformation. Their 10-day stay is overseen by the mysterious wellness guru Masha (Nicole Kidman) and her two assistants, Yao (Jacinto) and Delilah (Tiffany Boone).
The audition, Jacinto says, arrived in his inbox like any other. But it was the star-studded cast—which had already included Kidman and Melissa McCarthy at that point—and the inner conflict of his character that immediately caught his attention. It's a big deal, for sure— Jacinto “started screaming in the streets of Vancouver” after learning that he had booked the role.
Over the course of the eight-part miniseries, Yao has to contend with balancing his personal devotion to Masha and his burgeoning romance with Delilah—all while maintaining a calm façade and microdosing guests at the resort without their explicit consent. “It’s like what we all kind of deal with sometimes, with career [and] relationships,” Jacinto says. “Where do we draw the line? What do we pursue? What do we push for more? I think it can be a very common theme amongst a lot of people.”
The miniseries was originally scheduled to begin production in Los Angeles last summer amid the Covid-19 pandemic, but an executive decision was made to film the show in Byron Bay, Australia—a beachside town that has largely kept the virus at bay. Within a matter of weeks, Jacinto packed his bags and jetted off to Australia, where he joined fellow cast and crew members for a mandated 14-day quarantine before beginning a three-month shoot.
Jacinto teases that there's an intimate scene where he has to bear it all in the fourth episode of Nine Perfect Strangers—which, he jokes, “will motivate anyone to go to the gym.” But at the height of the pandemic, the 33-year-old actor was able to create a small gym space at his home in Los Angeles, where he made a point to work out on a regular basis. “For me, that’s my quiet time. That’s where I can focus and just calm my mind, just through physical activity, whether it be weight training, like with lifting weights, or yoga, [which] is huge for me. I guess cardio too, in terms of cycling and stuff,” Jacinto says.
As he's gotten older, Jacinto has also come to understand the importance of working on his flexibility and engaging his cardiovascular system as opposed to simply trying to build or strengthen his musculature. “But, man, in this industry,” he says, “everybody has to compare themselves to, like, Thor—and it’s tough. I’m not built that way, and there can be a lot of insecurities.”
That widespread insecurity, it seems, can be inextricably linked to the historically troubling depictions of Asian men in Western media. After a year that has seen both an increase in attention paid to Asian-led stories and a heartbreaking spike in anti-Asian racism, Jacinto is part of a wave of young actors looking to redefine Hollywood’s definition of a leading man, challenging the outdated stereotype that Asian men are “weak,” “sexless,” “effeminate” and “undesirable” beings.
Jacinto—who acknowledges that he was never able to articulate the lack of onscreen Asian representation that affected him until he found himself in the industry in his mid-twenties—has now played characters in both The Good Place and Nine Perfect Strangers at the center of intriguing love triangles. In doing so, he has been part of a movement to diversify the image of Asian men on television, who have rarely been allowed to be the “hunk” or the comic relief in a way that didn’t poke fun at racial stereotypes. “That just goes to show that representation is very important, because whether or not we are conscious of it, it is going to affect the younger generation—subconsciously at least—and how they see themselves,” he says.
While older Asian actors have told him they’ve “heard it all” when it comes to the development of diverse representation in the last few decades, Jacinto—ever the optimist—does feel like the opportunities that he and his peers have been afforded have increased in recent years.
“There is evidence of that with Crazy Rich Asians, with Shang-Chi, our first Asian Marvel superhero, and seeing more Asian storytellers, writers and directors coming up and doing their own thing. It’s incredible to be able to be doing this at a time when the notion of being Asian and being creative is being encouraged,” he says, later adding that he hopes this isn’t just a trend but rather the start of more equitable storytelling in Hollywood.
Jacinto also recognizes that he stands “on the shoulders of the people who have gone through the trenches—the guys that have had to enter the auditions of Asian gangster number eight, or Asian nerd number 12.” And while he has certainly received his fair share of auditions for one-dimensional, throwaway characters, the Filipino-Canadian actor feels fortunate enough to be in a position to pass on those roles, “because I know that there can be something better down the road,” he says.
With no shortage of acting work for the foreseeable future, Jacinto recently wrapped production on the romantic comedy I Want You Back and will be waiting with bated breath for the release of Nine Perfect Strangers and Top Gun: Maverick—the latter of which, he says, has been delayed multiple times because the production team wants to have a full theatrical release.
In the biggest feature film of his career to date, Jacinto plays a young pilot named Fritz and stars opposite Tom Cruise in the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 film that kick-started Cruise’s career. While he couldn’t offer many details about the film, Jacinto says that there was only one word to describe his experience of working with the legendary actor: intense.
“It’s intense in all aspects, whether it be scenes and purely just acting scenes, or it’s in the flight choreography, or simulations,” he says. “He goes to full lengths to make you feel like you’re absorbed in this environment, so he and the team are giving you contacts to U.S. Navy pilots or aviation videos. It’s intense, but the product that comes out of it is incredible.”
But as he waits to assess his next move, Jacinto still has his sights on a personal project near and dear to his heart.
“I’m gonna put this out there. I would love to do a live-action anime, and there’s one in particular I would love to do,” he says bashfully. “If you’ve ever seen Attack on Titan, there’s a character there I would love to play. His name is Levi Ackerman. I just love that anime. It sounds so nerdy when I say it, but yeah, maybe that’s the next thing I would love to tackle.”
