The great late National Artist film director Lino Brocka saw a potential for greatness in a young actress which she helmed in his 1985 film White Slavery, the first of critically acclaimed line of films that Jaclyn Jose would star in, in a span of three decades. Jaclyn earned her first acting nomination for best actress from the Urian Awards the following year.
In 2006, Jaclyn was honored by Urian with a third best actress award for her endearing performance of a prostitute who falls for a young man in Emmanuel de la Cruz’s Sarong Banggi. A decade later, Jaclyn was the toast of the 2016 Festival de Cannes, winning best actress for her understated portrayal of a troubled mother engaged in illegal drug in Brilliante Mendoza’s Ma’Rosa, her fourth collaboration with the Cannes-winning film director after Masahista (2005), Tirador (2007) and Serbis (2008).
Jaclyn is the first Filipina to win at Cannes, considered as one of the world’s leading and most prestigious international film festivals. The 52-year-old actress, born Mary Jane Santa Ana Guck, is mother to Andi Eigenmann, also featured in Ma’Rosa, her daughter with the late Mark Gil who she met in 1989 on the set of Chito Roño’s Itanong mo sa Buwan for which she won her second Urian best actress award. Jaclyn won her first Urian in 1987 for William Pascual’s Takaw Tukso.
Jaclyn, one of local filmdom’s most revered and highly esteemed actresses, has been likened to the great Nora Aunor for her method of restrained and subdued acting. Their films together were well-received by critics and award-giving bodies, including Joel Lamangan’s The Flor Contemplacion Story for which Aunor won the country’s first ever international best actress award from the Cairo Film Festival in 1995, and in Maryo J. de los Reyes’ Naglalayag for which Aunor won best actress at the Brussels International Independent Film Festival in 2004. It is quite ironic that the FAMAS Awards gave recognition to Jose only in 2012 with a Best Actress Supporting Award for Nuel Naval’s A Secret Affair.
Before her historic win in Cannes, only the third Asian to win best actress after Hong Kong’s Maggie Cheung in 2004 and Korea’s Jeon Do-yeon in 2007, Jose was honored with a special retrospective and tribute (Body of Work) at the 14th International Du Film D’ Amiens in France in 1994, the only Filipino accorded with such honor.