THE COLORFUL, versatile actor Bernardo Bernardo was so quotable in my Q and A with him via e-mail that my recent column on him ran in two parts.

Despite the two-part space devoted to BB, who just finished the LA premiere engagement of the play “The Romance of Magno Rubio” (with a wonderful cast that includes Ramon de Ocampo, Paolo Montalban, Arthur Acuña and Jojo Gonzalez), we still have some quotable quotes left from our interview. So we are sharing some of the Q and A segments which did not get printed due to space constraints.

And here’s a photo of Bernardo Bernardo (standing) with Ramon de Ocampo in “The Romance of Magno Rubio” courtesy of Matt Zugale.

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IT’S not every day that we come across a show in LA that speaks to our “Filipino-ness” in such a touching, excellent manner.

“The Romance of Magno Rubio” is one such play. While it tells the story of migrant Filipino workers in California in the 1930s, “Magno Rubio” does not feel dated or old-fashioned in a boring way.

Bravo to the cast of “The Romance of Magno Rubio” (from left), shown during the after-performance party at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown LA: Ramon de Ocampo, Jojo Gonzalez, Bernardo Bernardo, Arthur Acuña, playwright Lonnie Carter (described as an honorary Filipino because of his insightful, nuanced adaptation of Bulosan’s story) and Paolo Montalban.

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“MOST Wanted,” a musical about Filipino-American Andrew Cunanan who murdered designer Gianni Versace, just ended its workshop run at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California.

Fil-Am Jessica Hagedorn (”Dogeaters”), director Michael Greif and Mark Bennett have been creating and fine-tuning the play for six years. The musical’s book is by Jessica, music is by Mark and the lyrics are by both co-creators.

We’ve been following the saga of the making of this project with a subject matter that one would think would be the last thing to inspire a musical. But with the impressive credentials of this trio (Greif, for one, was the original director of the Tony Award-winning “Rent”), they might just make the musical work. The name of the protagonist has been changed to Danny Reyes but the play still hews closely to Cunanan’s life story.

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JOAQUIN PHOENIX, one of the finest actors of his generation, has always marched to a different drummer.

But it still came as a bit of surprise to hear him tell us in a recent interview that he checks his e-mail only once a month. In this day and age, that’s a shocker to most people who virtually sleep with their BlackBerry. But this is probably why Joaquin has stayed refreshingly different from his colleagues.

The actor, who stars in the drama, “Reservation Road,” admitted in a talk at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York: “I’m pretty computer illiterate. I do e-mail but only occasionally, like once a month. But of course, the Internet is a great tool for research. I don’t know what actors did 15 years ago. I don’t know if I could go to a library and spend that much time researching. I’m very fortunate to be in this time as an actor because we have the Internet as a great research tool.”

Joaquin revealed that he’s “not a big reader” in general. “I read scripts and on whatever research I have to do,” he explained. “I have this problem — I suppose it’s why I’m an actor. When I start reading a book, I end up just going off on these fantasies where I take the character somewhere completely different. I have to go back three pages because I was inventing this other fantasy. I get stimulated by a book but reading doesn’t let me focus on staying with the book. I just start wanting to invent other things.”

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent photo with two Fil-Am talents and Lea Salonga made us rush and watch for the nth time “Les Miserables” on our trip to New York this past weekend.

It was good to see Fil-Am talents like Adam Jacobs and Ali Ewoldt (in photo, courtesy of Carissa Villacorta) following in the footsteps of Lea.

Watching and listening to Adam and Ali by themselves on a Broadway stage at a certain point in the very popular musical thrilled us. We are glad to see that race-blind casting is taking hold in Broadway.

Editor’s note: Photo courtesy of  Carissa Villacorta