Josh Dela Cruz on Playing a Prince, a Wolf, and Finding Home in Manila

A return written in the stars

The rehearsal room is hushed but charged, like a forest just before a storm. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. Pages of sheet music rustle on music stands. Somewhere in the background, a pianist is softly running through Sondheim chords, melancholic and looping. Josh Dela Cruz sits on a folding chair, socks curled into the linoleum floor, a thermos of ginger tea steaming at his feet. He is watching a scene from Into the Woods, just offstage, barely visible. And he is crying.

“Yeah,” he says later, rubbing his eyes with sheepish familiarity. “That scene always gets me. I try not to watch anymore.”

For someone best known as the buoyant, eternally optimistic face of Blue’s Clues & You!, Josh has spent much of his career holding space for others. He listens with warmth, breaks the fourth wall with kindness, and invites viewers in. Now at 36, the Filipino-American actor is stepping into something far more complicated: a double role as Prince Charming and the Big Bad Wolf in Into the Woods, where the lines between hero and villain are blurred beyond recognition.

Set in Manila, with direction by Chari Arespacochaga and costume design by Clint Ramos, this production marks both a creative milestone and a deeply personal homecoming. For the first time, Josh is performing in the Philippines, a dream decades in the making. He is also discovering that the stories he thought he knew, much like the country he comes from, reveal new layers with time.

In an extended conversation with VMAN Southeast Asia, Josh reflects on the complexity of fairy tales, the joy and discipline of theater, and what it means to feel fully seen, not only on stage but also in the room.

Playing two sides of the story

VMAN SEA: Josh, you’ve played everything from Aladdin on Broadway to the host of Blue’s Clues & You!. Now you’re taking on two of the more complex characters in Into the Woods. How are you finding it?

JOSH: It’s wild, and in the best way. These characters are so theatrical but also really revealing. The Prince is vain and dramatic, obviously. But he’s not evil. He’s just… self-centered. The Wolf, meanwhile, is clearly dangerous, but also a metaphor for desire and temptation. And what I love is that I get to lean into the caricature a little. Not in a way that feels fake, but in a way that feels freeing.

JOSH: It’s also the kind of role I don’t think I would ever get in the U.S. So to play them here in the Philippines, surrounded by Filipino creatives, feels incredibly special.

VMAN SEA: Let’s talk about that. You’ve mentioned before how meaningful it is to work here. Now that you’re in Manila, what’s surprised you most?

JOSH: Just how emotional it is. I didn’t expect that. I mean, I’ve always wanted to work here. My family is here. It’s where my roots are.

“But actually being in a rehearsal room, surrounded by people who share your culture, who laugh at the same references, who understand you without needing context, is powerful. I feel like I’m not hiding anything. I’m not explaining myself. I’m just… me. Fully.”

VMAN SEA: Does it change the way you work?

JOSH: It does. It feels more collaborative, more relaxed in a weird way. I feel safer taking risks. And the cast… God, they’re incredible. I’ve had moments in rehearsal where I’ve just had to walk away because someone’s performance wrecked me. There’s a depth here that I didn’t know I needed until I experienced it.

VMAN SEA: Into the Woods is famously layered. You said you saw it as a teenager. How do you experience it differently now?

JOSH: Oh man, it’s night and day. I first saw it in high school, watching Bernadette Peters on a recording. Back then it felt like a quirky musical with fun characters. Now it’s a meditation on life. Regret. Grief. Consequence. All these grown-up things I didn’t understand back then hit me hard now. That line, “Wishes come true, not free”? That’s real. That’s life.

VMAN SEA: Has it made you reflect on your own career? Or the choices you’ve made?

JOSH: Definitely. I think a lot about the idea of getting what you wanted versus getting what you needed. Like, when Blue’s Clues ended in 2023, I hit a really rough patch. I was in a pretty deep depression for almost two years. I wasn’t sure what came next.

“And now here I am, playing these roles, in this place I’ve always wanted to work, with these people. It feels like the universe nudged me toward something I didn’t know I needed.”

VMAN SEA: You’ve been open about that mental health period. How did you get through it?

JOSH: Slowly. With a lot of starting and stopping. I fell off my routines: eating well, exercising, sleeping right. Eventually I realized I needed structure again. So with this show, I committed to 15,000 steps a day, whole foods, rest, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu when I can fit it in. I also want to learn boxing while I’m here. I feel like if I’m going to box, it should be in the Philippines, right? [Laughs]

VMAN SEA: And the food?

JOSH: The food is making it very hard to stay disciplined. [Laughs] I’ve been mostly plant-based for years, but I’ve rediscovered Filipino dishes here in vegan form. There’s this place near me with plant-based adobo that’s so close to the real thing it’s almost dangerous. And grocery stores with vegan tocino and longganisa? Game over.

VMAN SEA: A lot of kids know you as “Josh” from Blue’s Clues. How do you balance that persona with who you are off-camera?

JOSH: That’s such a great question. “Josh” on the show is very much me, but aspirational. He reacts the way I wish I could react all the time. He pauses. He listens. He’s gentle and curious and patient. And I’m not always that guy. I can be short. I can be impulsive. But because of the show, I’ve learned to breathe more, to give people the benefit of the doubt, and honestly, to be better.

VMAN SEA: What do you hope kids or young Asian Americans take away from seeing you on stage in this kind of role?

“That we contain multitudes. That we’re not just the helpful guy or the comic relief. We can be charming and flawed. We can be the predator and the prey. And we deserve to be seen as all of it.”

JOSH: And also, just come see theater. It’s unlike anything else. That moment when you’re sitting in a room with other people, all hoping the show is great? That can’t be replicated. No screen can match it.

VMAN SEA: Last one. If your Blue’s Clues character found himself in Into the Woods, what would happen?

JOSH: [Laughs] Oh, he’d totally get eaten by the Wolf. He’d follow clues into the trees and get led straight into danger. But he’d make it out. He’d ask the audience for help. He’d learn a big life lesson about trust. And he’d come back wiser. Probably with a song about it.

Beyond the woods, towards what’s next

As the lights dim on rehearsal and the cast files out into the humid Manila evening, Josh lingers behind, still taking it all, still smiling. There is a gentleness to him offstage that echoes the characters he has played, but also a sharper edge that comes from having lived through a few acts of his own.

If fairy tales are meant to help us make sense of growing up, then Into the Woods feels like the perfect place for Josh Dela Cruz to land, both as a performer and as a man reflecting on where he has been and what story he wants to tell next.

Photography Jason Roman

Special thanks Visions and Expressions