THE leading ladies of television and film are starting the new year with a bang.
After being away from prime-time television for five years, Angel Locsin is headlining a new series, titled The General’s Daughter, for ABS-CBN. It is perhaps the biggest comeback of an actress on TV and the buzz is getting louder as the pilot airing nears. Locsin had to hurdle quite a few personal obstacles over the past few years before she landed this plum role. She had to battle her weakening spine that saw her fly back and forth in Singapore to seek expert medical care.
Moreover, Locsin had to give up her longtime dream of giving life anew to the well-loved local superhero Darna, a project which was almost aborted after she was dropped from the cast.
The filmmaker tasked to bring Darna back to the big screen has also resigned citing creative and other differences with the producers.
But it is a new year and Locsin is all smiles that the Dreamscape production unit of ABS-CBN took her in and gave her this much-needed boost in her career. Locsin is being supported by the best ensemble of actors to make sure that The General’s Daughter will be a game changer in the television landscape: Eula Valdes, Maricel Soriano, Albert Martinez, Tirso Cruz III, Paulo Avelino, Janice de Belen, JC de Vera, Arjo Atayde and Art Acuña.
The beautiful Anne Curtis is also on a roll. After a very good 2018 where we saw her do something totally different in the acclaimed action flick Buy Bust of Erik Matti, Curtis also regaled audiences with a surprise hit movie Sid and Aya. She then ended the year with Aurora for the annual all-Filipino Metro Manila Film Festival. Although the movie got mixed reviews from critics, it took home the second Best Festival Picture plum, and it gave good monetary returns to Viva Films, which bankrolled the project.
Curtis is off to a good start this year, meeting with the director of her next movie, Jason Paul Laxamana. With a working title like Just a Stranger, the bosses at Viva are confident the film will be both a critical and commercial success when it hits the cinemas midyear.
Then there’s GMA actress Heart Evangelista who is reportedly somewhere in mainland China at the moment filming what is touted as her most important movie to date.
Talks have it that she has been cast in an important role in the sequel of the highly successful Hollywood movie Crazy Rich Asians and if the reports are true, then Evangelista certainly will be the “It Lady” of tinseltown toward the last two quarters of 2019.
We’ve always adored Evangelista ever since we met her when she was just starting out in the business. She is pleasant, sincere, well-mannered and carries herself very well. We are certainly happy about this wonderful development in her career.
Another actress who has started to get very busy is Jodi Santamaria. If the past two years were lackluster, 2019 will certainly see her scaling new heights. Her 2018 soap Sana Dalawa ang Puso Ko performed way below expectations especially when ABS-CBN decision makers gave it a morning time slot. But Santamaria did not lose heart.
She has started working on her solo-starrer, a film about demonic possession titled Clarita, loosely based on real life events. The movie will be directed by one of our favorite young filmmakers, Derick Cabrido.
In between being a single mother to her unico hijo Thirdy and her new film, Santamaria has also started work on her new soap Mea Culpa, also from Dreamscape.
We wish Santamaria only the best and hope that she will not commit the same mistakes she made in her personal life now that everything’s coming up roses for her. She deserves someone uncomplicated and mentally, financially, psychologically stable. And there’s a lot of them outside the entertainment business and politics that will surely treat her like a princess.