Ron Encarnacion is such a good actor people often don't believe he's acting. They believe he is the character, which is sometimes confusing, or worse. But he's OK with that. He's willing to suffer for his art.

Encarnacion has played more roles in Kumu Kahua Theatre productions than any other actor, has been seen on local TV commercials and specials since the 1980s, has taken memorable turns in Lisa Matsumoto's musicals. He has played hurt, acting through injury and illness, and has stepped in to take roles no one else wanted. He so convincingly played a bad guy (against type) that audience members wanted to beat him up after the show. Lately, the way he says "Porky Puffs!" has people stopping their cars to shout out to him in parking lots.

"I was at Wal-Mart and this lady drives by and slams on the breaks and goes, 'Eh, you the guy on the commercial?' I go, 'Yeah, that's me,' and she goes, 'Right on! Ho, I love that commercial!' "

The spot for HMSA has Encarnacion playing the affable Everyman hungry for a snack. He perfectly portrays human frailty, succumbing to the lure of the hilariously-named package of Porky Puffs that stare at him from a vending machine. When he's busted by a pretty woman who invites him to aerobics class, we feel his chagrin and understand his new resolve. In that one utterance: "Porky Puffs!" he sums up our battles with our inner demons. We've been there, done that, vowed to do better, too.

"That was the toughest commercial shoot of my life," Encarnacion says. The shoot started at 3 in the afternoon and he was still wrestling with the vending machine and lumbering through an aerobics routine until early the next morning. "A lot of that sweat is real," he says. "I was so sore the next day."

Other roles haven't been much easier. A few years ago, he shot a commercial for KFC right after having a tooth pulled. "We were sitting around the table with the actors playing my wife and two kids and we're eating chicken, and they were saying things like 'I smashed the car,' and I was saying 'That's OK, pass the chicken.' Or the daughter says she's getting a tattoo, and I go 'Fine, pass the biscuits.' " He couldn't chew on the side of his mouth with the missing tooth, but he faked through the pain and made that chicken meal look blissful.

He's done a number of ads for local banks. Currently, he's in a commercial for Central Pacific Bank showing off a digital photo frame. As pictures of his character's kids are displayed in the frame, the grown-up son still snoozes on the couch.

An earlier commercial for Bank of Hawaii, which showed talking wallets touting bank cards, featured just his back pocket. "I was like, 'That's my okole!' I was so flattered to be cast in that!"

A doorman at the Hilton Hawaiian Village by day, this man will do just about anything for the chance to perform. Friend and fellow actor Karen Hironaga says, "Ron is from the old school; he knows the meaning of hard work at rehearsals and dedication during performances. I have actually seen him perform while feeling absolutely sick — Ron has migraines — but he always believes, the show must go on."

Encarnacion's introduction to performing started in high school, when he quit football to join his then-girlfriend in what he describes as the "supposedly world-famous" Kailua High Madrigal Singers. "Every year they traveled around the world, so it was the only way I could see my girlfriend during the summer," he says.

After graduation from Kailua in 1982, he studied theater at KCC and soon found his way to Kumu Kahua and such seminal productions as James Grant Benton's "Twelf Nite O Wateva!" That led to roles in televised "Pidgin to da Max" specials on KGMB with Tremaine Tamayose, Ray and Andy Bumatai and Frank DeLima.

Over the years, he's been in "22 or 23" Kumu Kahua shows, ("Too many to list already," he says) often originating a role in a brand new play or stepping in to fill the shoes of an actor who couldn't be in the summer remount. He also was in Ed Sakamoto's production of "Life of the Land" at the Japan America Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

Last year, he was asked to play an online predator stalking underaged girls in Dennis Caroll's "Age, Sex, Location" at Kumu Kahua Theatre. "I couldn't say no," he laments. Mr. Nice Guy himself was so good in the role, audience members wouldn't talk to him after the performance. "Some high school students who saw the play wanted to beat me up after," he says. "It was awful."

He's bracing now for the lull that inevitably comes after a spate of high-profile local commercials. "They use you a lot and then they don't see you for a while," he says.

But "Porky Puffs," like Daryl Bonilla's "That's My Bank!," might have more than the usual staying power. Recently, while admiring motorcycles at Pflueger, someone came up to him and asked, "Hey, do you have a cousin who works for HMSA?" as if trying to reconcile the fictional character with the real man standing there.

"I said, 'No, that's me.' It's kind of a weird thing."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.