Fil-Am Josh dela Cruz on how life has changed...

to 2006.

The Philippine STAR had a virtual one-on-one with Josh recently to talk about his show’s movie-musical version, Blue’s Big City Adventure, where Josh the character brings Blue with him to New York City to pursue an opportunity of a lifetime — audition for a Broadway show. To state that the storyline rings familiar to Josh is an understatement given his background. The musical theater actor was the lead of Broadway’s Aladdin when he won the part in Blue’s Clues & You.

Now, asked how his life has changed since joining the Nickelodeon series, the 34-year-old readily acknowledged to The STAR that it changed a lot.

“The show has changed my life in so many ways. I get to work with incredibly talented people and I get to connect with so many wonderful people who want to have a kid point to the screen and say, ‘He looks like me,’” Josh said.

“And I hope that even if I don’t look like you or if you don’t identify with me on some level, know that it could be you someday, whether it be on film, TV, journalism, science, teaching. Whatever it is, you could be that person, you just have to work hard and be kind to the people around you, build a community to help each other and there’s no stopping you.”

One could say this is a wish fulfilled for Josh because he has always wanted to work on screen after years of being on Broadway. “I’ve always said that this is kind of like a paid scholarship because I’ve always wanted to work in film and television. When I decided that was something that I wanted to do after I was on Broadway, I was like, well, why stop here?” he said.

“I was like, all I want to do is work on TV. I want to learn how to do that, I want to film on location. I want to learn how to direct like, why are they doing this? Or why did they choose to do that instead of this? And because of this job and because of everyone’s generosity on set, I get to ask these questions and have fun learning. But also, have fun doing