Inquirer
First Posted 00:16:00 11/24/2007
MANILA, Philippines―Reacting to our recent “Directing Stars” article, some readers have asked us to share anecdotes about directing specific stars. Happy to oblige:
When we were tapped by Aling Miling and Aling Toreng Santos to write and direct our first feature film, we got to work with established Lea Productions stars, Hilda Koronel, Dante Rivero and Jay Ilagan.
Unique combination...
Hilda was still in her mid-teens, but was already the toast of the movie world because of her unique combination of exceptional beauty and precocious acting ability. She was such a precocious talent that, despite her young age, she was already being cast in lead, young-adult roles in the romantic dramas that Lea Productions was known for in the ’70s.
Directing Hilda turned out to be both a pleasure and a challenge. It was a pleasure because the young actress was disciplined and hardworking―and it was a challenge because she was too disciplined.
As a result, her performances tended to be too studied, and we had to work together to make her relax and unbend.
We also learned that, at the time, Hilda didn’t know how to cry on cue, so we shared some “crying exercises” to make it easier for her to do so.
On the more positive side, we found to our great delight that Hilda’s exceptional beauty could stand the most rigorous scrutiny: In one “transformation” scene, we instructed cinematographer Steve Perez to take big close-ups of the young star’s different facial features―eyes, nose, lips, etc., and her exquisite beauty passed the “test” with flying colors.
We also discovered that Hilda had another talent: She was great at “continuity”―meaning, keeping track of actors’ costumes, props, poses and movements so that they would remain consistent even if shots were filmed out of sequence. So, we used Hilda as our unofficial “continuity girl” throughout the shoot, and we thanked her for that extra service.
Memorable recollection...
But, our most memorable recollection of our movie with Hilda was the fact that it was during the shoot that she and her young leading man, Jay Ilagan, became (secret) sweethearts.
They had to keep their romance secret because Hilda’s studio frowned on any romantic relationship for its teen princess. But, Hilda and Jay were able to fool everyone―that’s how good they were as actors, even off-camera!
Speaking of Jay Ilagan, he was the local film industry’s most talented teen actor in the ’70s, and directing him was a breeze. Coming from the Ylagan family of theater and film artists, he had great genes and instinctively knew how to approach every role assigned to him.
He was also versatile, essaying very different roles (drama, comedy, musical, action) with ease and believability. Sensing this, we restricted our direction of his scenes to simple suggestions, plus a little tweaking here and there.
New discovery...
Later, Jay would go from one thespic success to another, and his stellar future was exceedingly bright―until he gained weight. His plumpness prompted his mentor, Lino Brocka, to pull him out of “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang” and replace him with new discovery, Christopher de Leon. Ditto for “Maynila, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag,” where Jay was replaced by Bembol Roco.
Jay’s loss was definitely Christopher and Bembol’s gain. But, we submit that the industry suffered a great loss when Jay’s stellar career lost its luster, because it was deprived of his exceptional and versatile talent. Christopher and Bembol have their merits, but Jay was unique unto himself. When comes such another?
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