![]() You’ve managed to make the role your own. We were supposed to go to the Philippines last year, but with everything that happened (with the pandemic), that didn’t end up happening. I was in the Philippines when I was a sophomore in high school, when I was 15, 16-that was the last time I’d ever gone there. I’m thankful for the chance to do my parents proud by taking the opportunities that they gave me and running with them. Then, I got to be on this show and platform. You know, my mom grew up in a one-bedroom house with her six other brothers and sisters, and I look back to that with gratitude, because my sisters and I were all able to go to school, coming from so little. That’s where I attended high school and college. Then, when I was 2, the hospital that my mom recently retired from sponsored us to go to the States, so we lived in Yonkers for the first three to four years of my life before ultimately moving to New Jersey, where my parents bought a house. My older sister and I were born in Dubai. I was just talking to my mom about this-my parents just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary yesterday! Through their mutual friends, they met, of all places, in church (laughs). My dad was working for a company in Germany, but was in the Middle East at the time. She got sponsored to work at a hospital in the Middle East with a bunch of friends. My mom was a nurse, who just retired this year. My mom and dad essentially grew up in the Manila area. ![]() They immigrated from the Philippines to the Middle East. My dad’s name is Roger and my mom’s name is Adelfa. Josh (center), Blue (left) and their pals in “Blue’s Clues & You” Our Q&A with Josh: Can you talk about your Filipino roots? So, we’d go over her house, switch the channel to Nickelodeon, and watch ‘Blue’s Clues’ with my cousin Gabby.” ![]() “I still remember my Tita’s (aunt’s) pink rug, because she was the only one with cable. “My little sister was 4 at the time, so that would put me around 7 years old when I watched it with her,” Josh recalled, smiling. The Dubai-born son of homegrown Filipino expats said he has vivid recollections of watching “Blue’s Clues” as a child. Suddenly, it’s like, anything is possible!” Just looking back at where I came from-my family immigrated to the States when I was 2 years old-and now, this. “So, when I came into this opportunity, I felt so honored. “But it didn’t cross my mind that I could be a television actor because I never saw characters who looked like me on TV! It was always caricature- as a villain or a foreigner. I became a theater actor because I saw people onstage like Lea Salonga and BD Wong, so that’s why I thought, ‘OK, I could be a theater actor.’ “I studied theater (he has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Montclair State University). Let’s just move on.’ Then, my agent sent me an email about a final callback, and they said, ‘Oh, by the way, they had just auditioned over 3,000 people.’ So I got really excited-I was like, ‘OK, looks like I’m doing well!’ But then, I was terrified because I never thought I’d ever become a TV actor! I didn’t hear back from them for a month, so I thought, ‘Oh, it’s over. “I found out in the middle of my auditions that they saw so many people for this. I got this audition from my agent, and I was like, ‘This is amazing! The show’s coming back on its 25th anniversary!’ I used to watch this with my little sister! “The opportunity to represent Asians, Filipino Americans and Filipinos around the world is so special to me,” Josh admitted to us. And it couldn’t have started better than seeing a beaming Josh greeting us with “Hello, Kuya (older brother)!”-instantly demonstrating how Pinoy tradition has been heartwarmingly instilled in the value system of this handsome new face in children’s entertainment! ![]()
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