Impersonator, comedian, and actor Jon Santos has always lived to surprise. When asked in The Rolling Stone Philippines Interview what kind of comedy he likes, he says, “Well, it became work. I don’t look for it as an audience member. I don’t look for it in streamed entertainment. The closest I got to consuming a comedy show was Modern Family because the last part is always a poignant moral lesson. As an audience member, I look for dramas. But comedy gold for me is fantastic puns.”
At 60, Santos has appeared in several shows, both on screen and onstage, his most recent project being the 2025 rerun of The Sandbox Collective’s interactive one-man play, Bawat Bonggang Bagay, a Filipino translation of the English play Every Brilliant Thing. Here, he plays an unnamed narrator who lists the big and small things to live for as he reflects on his youth and his mother’s struggle with mental health.
Reflecting on his own life, Santos says he’s gone through phases, from being “young and hungry and aching to leave home” in his 20s, to being in debt in his 30s. “The last 20 years have been pretty great,” he says, after briefly mentioning that he has also been sober for the last two decades.
Even in his youth, Santos subverted expectations. In the latest episode of The Rolling Stone Philippines Interview, Santos talks about his beginnings in theater and comedy, and pursuing these as an economics student. “I come from a family of 9-to-5 uncles and aunts,” he tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “Nobody was in the arts, not a single performer. They were just architects and doctors, and a lot of soldiers. No one really discouraged me, but there was really no data for me to say I can make a living out of this.”
It was also in his youth that he had come out to his “military family,” but he says that there were very few conversations about his queerness. “Doing drag onstage, I just had my parents come in with complimentary tickets. They thought I was a stage manager, and then they saw me onstage. So that was [me] breaking them in,” he recalls.
“Later [on], it was just bringing someone to the family gatherings, kaunting fingers crossed, kaunting nerbyos. But no setup, no exchange. I just sensed that they had so many questions, [but] their love was bigger than their questions.”
In this episode, Santos also delves into his process as a comedian, teaching people deprived of liberty about Shakespeare, mental health, and sobriety. When asked about the biggest thing he’s learned about sobriety and recovery, he says, “The first two steps: I am powerless over my problem, and I can only conquer this with the help of a higher power that I know. And the clothes fit better.”
For more on Jon Santos, watch the full episode of The Rolling Stone Philippines Interview on YouTube.
