I'm not a singer, nor am I the greatest performer on stage. So the thought of going to a Rockeoke Night was just something not the nearest thing in my mind. GMA had bloggers invited to Selda Dos, a place around Visayas Avenue... making all my nightmares come true haha. I thought it was just going to be some binging and drinking but when we arrived and saw a stage in front, I said WHOA. Oh no, we're going to sing. I immediately settled and pretended no one would see me if I'm just going to eat in a corner or something, but no.. they whispered to my ear... hey you'll be singing with Kris Bernal later, be ready. I just said "Oh no!"
Stars from GMA suddenly came one by one. They said hi, everyone was gorgeous that night. We sat down and interviewed them one by one. It was pretty hard because aside from that we had to celebrate the night and break the ice by having them sing on stage for the Rockeoke part of the evening. Check out gorgeous vampire Glaiza De Castro.
Then check out when awesome Yasmien Kurdi and gorgeous Kris Bernal took the stage.
We had so much fun. I'm not going to show the video of me singing of course. I also had the other people delete videos where I'm singing, or else haha!
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| Kris Bernal |
I love Kris Bernal. It was quite noisy when I interviewed her but we survived it. We talked about her show with Dennis Trillo and Rocco Nacino called "Hiram na Alaala" (Borrowed Memory). It's been faring very good in ratings and I guess that's part of the reason why they're ending the show in the other station.
Kris says "I'm okay and I'm happy. We really have to perform quite well in ratings because we've worked hard in this show. If you only knew how much pain and anguish I've thought about just to cry buckets of tears for my role here, I had to make it my motivation. Almost every taping, I have to cry. I cry almost every day and it's kinda draining. I get the emotions from the character and emotions from everyday life. I haven't experienced getting married or getting that much heartbroken but I easily get attached to friends and I get motivation from that instead. The good feedback I get from social media and everyone I know makes it all worth it. That part is very fulfilling.
Working with Dennis Trillo was a dream, just the thought of having this MHL star and working with him on his next project made me very thankful. He had a choice of working with any actress but he chose me. That point alone made me very thankful. I always see him give 100% and I had to go where he is and I get a lot of good feedback from people.
Dennis is actually very quiet on set perhaps because he's doing "method acting". I couldn't talk to him, I was too shy and sometimes we only meet when we have a scene. Sometimes I get intimidated but I think he felt that. Today, we get very comfortable and bond while in the shoot.
I easily can get detached to my character. Sometimes when I get depressed, I actually save it so I can use it for a scene. I don't think about it until I need it there. I don't like the feeling but I can use it on scenes, sometimes I also get drained but I always do my best. I have zero love life, but I do have a lot of suitors (then we laughed) but for now, I am so picky because I don't want relationships that would just waste both our money and time. I want someone that I could spend my whole life with. I don't just go to dates, I choose them wisely now. The perfect date for me is being happy the whole day, I go out with friends, I pole dance and I work out. I escape through books too so I read a lot when I'm at home.
The scenes now on "Hiram na Alaala" will be more conflicted. I already fell in love with Dennis Trillo's character because all the good things I see with the character of Rocco before was already with Dennis. All his memories, all his traits, I wanted that with Dennis. When Rocco comes back, that's where I'll get very confused. This Ivan will have Otep's persona, I will not know who I'll choose because I've already fallen in love with Ivan. If there's a choice and had my way, I will choose Otep over Ivan, because I want to have the original one."
Kris, thank you for bearing with me while I try so hard singing with you on stage. I got too shy. Thank you for the experience! We rock! :)
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| Yasmien Kurdi |
Yasmien Kurdi was very pretty that evening. She's doing Mother roles now much like her compatriots in GMA. She's happy to work with new ones in Yagit more so because she sees these kids are very promising. She thinks so highly of them and wants to see in a few years how they will fare when they get more matured. "Yagit" is directed by Gina Alajar and Yasmien says "I've worked with her numerous times as my mother on shows and she's so naturally caring with the kids and us who are in the show. She doesn't stress us out, she's cool and chilled. She's good vibes all day because that's the environment that will also be good with the kids. It's a little hard shooting this show because we always get flooded in the location, even our tent gets affected. It's stressful and trains go by every now and then. It's all good though, I've prepared quite well and enjoyed this experience. The kids are all very good, they don't complain about things too much because the crew and the Director takes care of them.". "Yagit" replaced hit show "Dading" on GMA Afternoon Primetime. It was awesome singing with you Yasmien! Hope you get to record a few songs again this year or perhaps early next year. She's doing voice modulation therapy and making a different technique in the future. She'll have Filipino love songs in the pipeline. She's also got great plans for her kid if ever they plan to have her in showbiz. You're really doing good.
Speaking of albums and Dading, one of my favorite interviewees was there. Glaiza De Castro just arrived from her "Vampire ang Daddy Ko" (My Dad Is A Vampire) series that's shown weekends on GMA. She's back in the show and promises several more good scenes on the comedy series. Aside from that she's planning to release an independently produced album called Synthesis which she's planning to do real soon.
She says "Vampire ang Daddy Ko" for is a little refreshing, at least I won't be doing drama for a while and do more challenging things in comedy. It's been a while since I've last taped an episode for them and I'm still trying to catch up. Aside from that, I'm busy with Sunday All Stars and I'm focusing on my album which I've long wished to be launched. We're still promoting it and printing more. It's a long process and I'm not in a hurry. I want to be sure with everything because it took me years to make this happen. The making also took a long time, it's got 8 tracks mostly originals. I have some songs which I also wrote with my friends. It's a personal one, finding your passion, pursuing dreams, heartbreaks, the typical things that a person of my age goes through. Although I'm not sure what genre it is, this is a fusion of my influences so I don't want to box things and keep it eclectic. I made some of the songs 4 years ago, as an outlet, as I was influenced by The Sundays.
My friends were helping me a lot and I had to learn how to do this by collaborating with other people. Along the way, we recorded, we jammed, all the songs we've done on this album is very personal. This is what I've been doing in the background all along. I wanted to do this. Synthesis came from Benjamin Alves, a concept where all my friends helped me with this. Angelica Panganiban, Alessandra De Rossi, even Chynna Ortaleza helped me make songs and artworks for the album. It was just a cool term, it represented all the works from different people and I am producing it. I am just the one putting it together but the content is mostly done in collaboration with my friends. It's hard, and it's a journey. You'll see what we've arranged to include in the album, I've also got one in a music video. We're trying a lot of things and it's going to be personal also for the people that will hear it. Your passion, your calling, you will feel that the will of the Lord will happen."
Glaiza is very multi faceted, she's doing it all. I wish her all the success in her future endeavors and I hope we get to be invited when her album gets launched. Thank you Glaiza!
My Twitter exploded the moment I posted a photo of these two love birds. Yes, Elmo Magalona and Janine Gutierrez have admitted it already. I'm extremely happy for these two, more so for their fans who have been waiting to hear the obvious. I haven't really interviewed them quite seriously in the past, it was more of promoting some brands they endorsed and I hoped to get something from them this evening.
I asked them about their upcoming show "More than words". Elmo answered "It's a brand new show that would make you fall in love and giddy because it's very light and very much a romantic comedy. I think they saw something different with us and that's why they planned to back the pairing. We came from Villa Quintana which was more of drama and very heavy. On this one, our characters will be very different especially on the part of "Ikay" played by Janine Gutierrez. It's really very different."
Janine added "We've shot only a few days. The story is very different, especially our characters who are in a wholly different situation. Isagani and Lynette was where we were used to. Our scenes had so many funny moments, and the romantic ones too. I'm excited because we get to spend more time together as a pair as compared to Isagani and Lynette who only met when there's trouble in the family."
Janine also thanks everyone who also gave her good feedback on her stint in Ms. World but as for joining the pageant, she's really not thinking of doing that in the near future, nor is it anywhere near her mind. She says "Right now it's really not in my plans, I'd rather focus on my career and on the show. I'm not really into pageants. It's something new for me, I don't have any blog but I know how powerful blog are. Since my character is not that popular in school, I get to do my fantasies inside that blog and have it published on a regular basis. That's where I get to meet my ideal guy, I created this fantasy world. I enjoy making my dream boy Hiro."
Elmo says "Hiro is the young man that Ikay created in the show. Was he just a fantasy or was he a real guy? We don't know, that's the confusing part that you should watch out for in the show. There are parts where you'll see him in a dream sequence and it's funny when it comes true. That's the forte of our Director, something romantic and something funny... something light and a joy to watch. There's always the pressure because we are going to be in the primetime block. It's a different experience all in all. I'm so happy that we're together in this follow up show, it doesn't happen everyday."
Janine added "It's different also because we also got to record songs. I'm happy because I get to be with Elmo who's really used to doing this. (Elmo interjects saying how beautiful Janine's voice is then they laughed) It's fun and I'm so happy that we were given the chance to actually sing the theme song for this show. Plus, it's an original song. Not that song in the early 90's."
Elmo is so happy that they get to work with Leni Santos and Rey PJ Abellana who was a pretty good pairing also in the 80's. They will also be working with veteran actress Jaclyn Jose. There will be a lot of them in the show that will have a little blend of their own love stories, so they hope a lot of people would be able to watch it. I asked how they feel about their fans who are over the top when supporting them, Elmo says "Yeah I know, from events, from online support, they're always there to participate and make the events themselves. We didn't really expect that to happen. That's really not our goal to begin with but seeing them support us since we started, it feels good that they continue to support us." then I asked why Elmo seems to be bigger and bulkier now, he joked that he'll be in magazines soon and perhaps he'll show a little skin/get more topless in the show. Then we all laughed.
It was a nice evening to spend with Elmo and Janine, they were really fun to chat with. I really hope I get to talk to them more in the coming weeks and see how they feel the show is faring. It'll be a hit for sure. Thank you so much to GMA Social Media for everything! You know who you are! :)
For more information about their artists:
Official GMA Artist Center
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