Mathias Muchus: More than meets the eye
By Agni Amorita
JAKARTA (JP): Actor Mathias Muchus cannot be accused of giving in to typecasting.
He was the boy-next-door in the hugely popular 1980s TV series Losmen, but gained weight to beef up his looks as a boxer in the film Rio Sang Juara (Rio the Champion).
He won a Citra, the country's now defunct film award, for playing a homosexual artist in Istana Kecantikan (Palace of Beauty) in 1988. And recently he was the cheating husband of an obsessive wife in the TV series Jangan Rebut Suamiku (Don't Take My Husband).
He has gained more fame today as the father in Petualangan Sherina (Sherina's Adventure), the box-office smash produced by his wife Mira Lesmana.
He not only backed his wife's tough decision to make an independent movie, but 43-year-old Muchus, who also hosts a game show, has no difficulty accepting Mira calling the shots on the set.
"Best of all, I was chosen in a fair and professional way after auditioning because there were already some names put forward to play my character," said Muchus, who has two sons, Galih Galinggis, 9, and Kafka Keandre, 2, with Mira.
His signature role was Tarjo in Losmen. Aired by the then sole TV station state-owned TVRI, the show told of a middle-class Yogyakarta family who ran a bed-and-breakfast.
The show was by noted writer Tatik Maliyati, his own professor in real life, and the cast included veteran actors such as Mieke Widjaja and Mang Udel.
The streets emptied every Thursday when the show was broadcast. Muchus' cute looks and naive, idealistic character of the innkeeper's youngest son stole the show.
"It wasn't just about my physical appearance as people used to think because the best part that brought me fame was how I could fit into Tarjo's character as a university student who spent all of his life in Yogyakarta," Muchus said.
Originally from South Sumatra, he undertook his own research to hone an authentic Yogyakarta accent.
The television roles continued even after the Indonesian cinema slipped into a morass, with Muchus taking part in the TV boom. He has had leading roles in several important sinetron (TV series); some of his best acting was in Jangan Rebut Suamiku with two dazzling actresses, Paramita Rusady and Meriam Bellina.
Muchus also takes his theater career seriously. He is the only actor nominated to play the leading role in the upcoming play Caligula, which was planned to be staged in 1997 but canceled due to the monetary crisis. "Acting is my life," the actor said.
Key
Professional is the key word for Muchus in his more than two- decade-long acting career.
Born in Pagaralam in South Sumatra, Muchus was named after a Catholic priest who lived next door.
"He was a close friend of my parents who at that time had too many options for naming me."
Pursuing a dream in performing arts, young Muchus went to Jakarta to join the School of Performing Arts at the Jakarta Arts Institute.
"Up to now, its has no more than 20 students each year and its dominated by male students. Girls are not interested enough in the very long and hard process of acting lessons," he said.
"My acting process started from a big zero, but the severe training and basic preparation recharged me almost a hundred percent. Mentally I was shattered and so empty before the new concept was introduced. The good news is I became aware that the acting process is a lifetime education so at anytime I am learning."
It's a difficult road made harder because of the lack of support for performing arts careers.
"Parents usually disagree when their children want to study in the not so commercial performing arts school," Muchus said.
"That's why having idealism for acting in the local film industry is very, very hard. Because all aspects of it -- from the script, crew and production process -- are not sufficiently supportive. Heading for a professional way will take a long journey because even its elementary aspect, timing, is neglected."
Lack of professionalism is a problem.
"If we are talking about professionalism, the actor's emotions have to be kept as a priority without any useless nontechnical handicaps, like simple things such as late operations. It is a basic thing but we mostly can't do it."
Another major problem is the use of professional actors with untrained ones to cut costs.
"As a consequence the professional actor has to adjust his capability, usually by lowering, to get along because the scene can't be done alone."
Muchus blamed star-oriented filmmakers in the country, who want to fill their movies with beautiful no-talents, as the greatest threat to the quality of local films.
"The great film aspects are neglected for the sake of those stars. The worst thing is that to pay the millions of rupiah for the beautiful faces' contracts, the film production budget has been pressed after the shooting has started. It explains how a great idea of a movie can turn into a pitiful show in its realization. This ongoing process, of course, affects the actor psychologically, and eventually they adjust their standards lower with the declining production values."
He acknowledged an actor's appearance was important and he stays fit through bicycle riding. "But it (appearance) doesn't come first. To be a great actor we have to learn every day. Look at Christine Hakim -- she is phenomenal today through continuous learning, day to day".