My Filipino Connection: The Philippines in Hollywood

By Ruben V. Nepales

Award-winning Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ruben Nepales interviews Filipino Americans and Filipinos in America who have made it big in the Hollywood scene and beyond:  actors Bernardo Bernardo, Alec Mapa, Vanessa Hudgens, Hailee Steinfeld, and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, singers Charice Pempengco, Luisa Mendez-Marshall, and Charmaine Clamor, TV star Darren Criss, model-actress Bessie Badilla, film production insiders Maricel Pagulayan and Isabel Henderson, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, animators Gini Santos, John Butiu, Ronnie del Carmen and Ricky Nierva, filmmaker Ramona Diaz,  comic-book illustrator Tony DeZuniga, YouTube sensation Mikey Bustos, and White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9789712727511

Book preview

My Filipino Connection: The Philippines in Hollywood

by Ruben V. Nepales

Copyright to this digital edition © 2012 by Ruben V. Nepales

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

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First printing, March 2012

Second printing, May 2012

Edited by Emmie G. Velarde

Cover design by Ariel Dalisay

Interior design by Joshene Bersales

Design based on E.D.G.E. by The Outstanding Students of the Philippines

ISBN 9789712726538 (e-book)

Version 1.0.1

To the three women in my life—Janet, Nikki, and Ella—who keep me inspired, laughing, and loving.

I am one lucky man.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Bernardo Bernardo

Alec Mapa

Charice

Vanessa Hudgens

Darren Criss

Hailee Steinfeld

Bessie Badilla

Luisa Mendez–Marshall

Anna Maria Perez de Tagle

Charmaine Clamor

Maricel Pagulayan and Isabel Sumayao Henderson

Matthew Libatique

Filipino-American Symphony Orchestra

Gini Cruz Santos

John Butiu

Tony DeZuñiga

Louie del Carmen

Ramona Diaz

Ronnie del Carmen and Ricky Nierva

Cristeta Pasia Comerford

Mikey Bustos

Regarding Ruben

Preface

Many of these pieces originally appeared in my column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I wrote them under the gun of a newspaper deadline, which I continue to beat three times a week. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I sit in front of a blank MS Word page on my monitor, the optimist in me hoping to click the Send key sooner than later.

Of course, the reality is a messy one. Travel, interviews, the daily demands of this thing called life often find me writing on the run, late into the night, while the deadline clock is ticking in the Inquirer newsroom in Makati City, Philippines, literally an ocean away. Occasionally, when running really late, I would get a polite e-mail from the entertainment section desk, saying, Sir, just checking if you already sent your column.

Somehow, after several harried hours of writing and revising, I hit Send . . . and relax, until next week comes along.

*

While my column is called Only IN Hollywood (several friends have teased me about the cheesy title—I can’t claim the credit), I also write about Filipinos making it in other fields. After a feature about Angelina Jolie in New York one day, and another about Woody Allen in Venice the next day, I would invariably devote a column on a Filipino landing a plum role on Broadway or elsewhere.

Even when interviewing non-Filipinos, I’d still be hoping for what I have come to call the Filipino connection. Browsing the Internet one lazy day in LA, I was surprised to come across a magazine column by multiawarded poet and screenwriter Jose Pete Lacaba, in which he mentioned the term I had coined.

Lacaba wrote: Filipino connection a.k.a. FC: a reference, in foreign publications or events, to the Philippines or to anything remotely associated with Filipinos . . . The term, along with the abbreviation, was coined by Ruben V. Nepales, a Filipino entertainment columnist based in Hollywood, who defines it as ‘a tongue-in-cheek term my colleagues and I came up with to call a comment or a reply from a Hollywood celeb, a line from a movie, or anything that has to do with the Philippines.’

Pete cited an example of FC: "Here’s Ruben in a report datelined Los Angeles (Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 9, 2007): ‘I was sitting quietly in our press con with ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ director Joel Schumacher, thinking there was nil possibility that the amiable filmmaker had a Filipino connection when, boom, he was suddenly talking about Imelda Marcos. I turned to a colleague who loves to tease me about my Filipino connection questions. There you go, your Filipino connection, my colleague mouthed.’ "

Thanks to FC consciousness, I was the first to report that Hailee Steinfeld, an Oscar best supporting actress nominee for True Grit (2011) has Filipino blood. At a party in December 2010, a colleague, well aware of my penchant for seeking FC, eagerly shared that Peter Steinfeld, who was escorting his daughter at the bash, had just told him that Hailee was part Pinay. I asked Hailee that same night, and she confirmed it.

The same colleague emailed me a news story on Jesse Eisenberg, Academy and Golden Globe best actor nominee for The Social Network, making his off-Broadway debut as a playwright with Asuncion, about how two American guys’ liberal stance is put to the test when a Filipina immigrant comes to share their apartment. The result was my FC story on Fil-Am actress Camille Mana, who cinched the plum role that cast her opposite Eisenberg and The Hangover’s Justin Bartha.

On a set visit in Montreal, as the late, acclaimed Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka showed us the elaborate costumes she had done for a movie, I noticed a Filipina-looking woman standing nearby. I introduced myself and, voila, she was, indeed, a Pinay. Her name was Charlene Vallespin, she said, and we found that she had been accorded the rare privilege of being mentored by Ishioka, who had earlier won a best costume design Oscar for Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola.

In 2007, Brillante Dante Mendoza and I were both Cannes virgins. So even after I had stood and joined the gala audience applauding Angelina Jolie, her cast mates, and director Michael Winterbottom at the end of their A Mighty Heart screening at the Grand Palais; and talked to Josh Brolin about No Country for Old Men on a hotel balcony overlooking the Croisette, I wanted to spend more time with Dante, my FC at that moment. It’s fascinating that the Filipino filmmaker won the prestigious festival’s best director honors a scant two years later.

Sometimes I’m not so lucky. I was on the Berlin set of Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie and totally missed Maricel Pagulayan, who was there, too, as visual effects producer. But in Cancun, my FC radar was up—I got quotes about Pagulayan being a visual effects magician from The Smurfs director, Raja Gosnell.

Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig are not known to be loquacious at interviews, but when I asked about Filipino American cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who had shot their Cowboys & Aliens mash-up, they were suddenly verbose, effusive in their praise of his work.

Director Oliver Stone is an easy FC plug-in, since he made several award-winning films in the Philippines. He always asks how things are back home. He’s really interested in the country.

Forest Whitaker, grand-slam best actor winner in 2007 for The Last King of Scotland, is surprisingly brimming with FC anecdotes. He appeared in Oliver’s Platoon, so he has interesting stories about his experience in the Philippines, including taking shelter in Balic-Balic during the first People Power Revolution.

Taylor Hackford, who directed the Oscar best picture nominee Ray (2004), was the first to tell me that his wife, Oscar and Golden Globe best actress Helen Mirren, had a brother who married and lived in the Philippines for a long time. From then on, I pursued this FC slant every time I talked to Helen.

Two of my earlier FC encounters were with accomplished actors—Jeremy Irons and Sigourney Weaver. Irons, in his veddy British accent and droll manner, answered my question about his memories of being shown around Manila by former First Lady Imelda Marcos during the 1980 Manila International Film Festival.

I remember the smell of the garlands, said the 1990 Oscar and Golden Globe best actor (Reversal of Fortune) in his low, sonorous voice that’s been likened to a serpent’s crossed with an angel’s. What was the flower?

When I said Sampaguita, the very elegant Jeremy remarked, Right. There’s an oversweetness about it. I remember Imelda with her sort of comfortableness, and Alexander Walker. You probably knew Alexander Walker, a great English film critic, sadly, now dead. He was gay. We were all given these white flower garlands to wear, and Alex wore his, certainly. We were sitting in this huge dinner for Imelda in a massive, great ballroom. The English national anthem started up, and we all stood. These huge doors opened, and in walked Alex with these sampaguita garlands. I thought, God Save the Queen indeed, here he comes.

As for statuesque Sigourney, I asked about her recollection of filming Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously in the Philippines in 1982. I think it was my favorite experience on a movie because it was the first time I’d ever been to Asia, she said.

Sigourney recalled seeing Mel Gibson, her costar in the movie, that also featured Kuh Ledesma, Bembol Roco, and other local actors, for the first time: "Mel was already the ‘Road Warrior.’ He was already a huge star in Australia. I remember when I first met him . . . he was wearing this bright blue shirt. I had never seen a human being who was so gorgeous. In fact, I looked at him and I went, ‘Oh no,’ because I was supposed to be the pretty one in this story, but it was him . . . He was offered the James Bond role while we were working. He turned that down."

In a separate interview, Weir surprised me by asking how Ledesma and Roco were doing. He pronounced their names flawlessly.

Interview subjects who adore boxing champ Manny Pacquiao invariably turn the tables when they learn that I am from the Philippines. Jolie volunteered that her sons watch Pacman’s fights on television. Mark Wahlberg revealed that he prays for his buddy Pacquiao before every ring bout. Award-winning composer Randy Newman was suddenly the one asking me questions: Does Pacquiao really sing? Is he an elected government official now?

Designer Monique Lhuillier has been a boon to my FC search, too. This designer has been my FC link to stars who wear her clothes not only to red carpet events but also to interviews—from Eva Longoria to Mila Kunis.

But sometimes I get the opposite reaction to my FC quest. I’ve written about running into this veteran actor minutes before the scheduled interview. I requested permission to ask about his romance with a Filipina many eons ago. He replied, with disgust, I hate (name of Pinay)! End of my FC pursuit with that durable actor.

Once I was watching Quentin Tarantino’s movie Death Proof, part of a double feature called Grindhouse. In one scene, Philippines suddenly sprang forth from the mouth of Rosario Dawson.

The exchange between Dawson, who plays a movie makeup artist, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as a starlet, went like this:

Guess who laughed the hardest? And guess what I asked Tarantino after that screening?

Tarantino, being a Filipino B-movie buff who has visited the Philippines several times, is another constant source of FC. In his original script for the acclaimed Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino used the words Tagalog and Filipino that would have been spoken by Christoph Waltz (who swept the best supporting actor awards in 2010 for his performance as Nazi Colonel Landa) as he interrogated the captured Lieutenant Aldo (Brad Pitt), a Nazi hunter. Tarantino did away with the line during the filming.

The director, a great raconteur, elaborated on that line during my interview with him. But in a party at the home of Inglourious . . . producer Lawrence Bender in Holmby Hills, we enjoyed listening to Tarantino again, because he repeated the story with the same enthusiasm. What we also found enthralling was that he remembered the exact dialogue and recited it, after setting up the scene in which Lieutenant Aldo, an American, gave himself away when he tried to pass himself off as Italian:

I was certain that Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In, a stylish thriller about a crazed plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas), would be the last thing to yield an FC item. Well, when two members of the surgeon’s household staff were let go, they suddenly spoke in Tagalog as they stormed out of their boss’s mansion, luggage and all. Mga Filipino pala! Truly, I concluded, one need never look too far.

Ruben V. Nepales

*

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the following (please save your applause until the end):

Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, for the permission to reprint my PDI pieces;

Asian Journal’s Roger and Cora Oriel, for likewise