[12] He was commissioned to write and direct a Singaporean two-part drama The Century Egg for StarHub and worked as a second-unit director to Sally Wainwright on the Disney+ series Renegade Nell.

[14] Angered by the treatment of immigrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and uptick in anti-Asian racism, Zarcilla channeled that into making his feature directorial debut Raging Grace,[15] a gothic horror film and the first in a trilogy.

[21] On Letterboxd, Zarcilla named nine films that influenced Raging Grace: Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), Bong Joon Ho's short Shaking Tokyo (2008), Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1982), Alfonso Cuarón's Roma (2018), Peter Medak's The Changeling (1980), Danny DeVito's Matilda (1996), Hirokazu Koreeda's Nobody Knows (2004), and Alejandro Amenábar's The Others (2001).

[22] In terms of writing, Zarcilla has praised the likes of Sally Wainwright, Russell T Davies and Sharon Horgan, and expressed a desire to work with Nathan Bryon, Lee Sung Jin, Craig Mazin, and Mika Watkins.

[13] In 2018, Zarcilla went viral on social media when he unexpectedly found a cat and her litter of four kittens in his East London flat.