GLAIZA de Castro
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. Glaiza de Castro had to straddle the local contemporary music scene and pre-colonial Philippines in two disparate projects: Quark Henares’ indie film “Rakenrol” and the GMA 7 prime time series “Amaya.”
“Rakenrol,” which opened in local cinemas on Wednesday, took five years to finish.
Getting into character was “instantaneous” for her and “Rakenrol” costars Jason Abalos, Ketchup Eusebio and Alwyn Uytingco, she recounted. “We’re all passionate about music. Between takes, we talked about and swapped CDs. It was a wonderful process.”
In the last five years, she and her fellow actors literally grew up with their characters.
She said that she relates well with Irene, the edgy rock muse she portrays. “I connected with her. We even like the same kind of music such as the local bands featured in the movie—Urbandub, Up Dharma Down, Peryodiko, Taken by Cars.”
When she auditioned for the role, she stunned the director by singing “After Hours” by influential New York band Velvet Underground, another of her favorites, along with Icelandic singer-songwriter Bjork.
“The Velvet Underground defined and enjoyed their own kind of music (in the 1960s), while Bjork will do what she wants and go against genres and labels,” said Glaiza.
The “Rakenrol” team isn’t sure yet whether an original soundtrack would be released, “but we recorded songs and posted them on Facebook,” she said.
She’s glad that she got to showcase a “different kind of singing” in this movie—a hard-rocking style she never got to try in her old series “Diva” or in “Party Pilipinas.”
Her role on the Kapuso historical fiction “Amaya” is quite daunting, too, she said.
“I have to be convincing as a woman from the pre-colonial period,” she related.
The actors take pains to be accurate in their gestures and way of speaking.
On top of these, she has to create a complex persona in Binayaan, a beguiling impostor. “She’s fragile and vulnerable and yet has many secrets. She’s not the typical contravida who’s always screaming and raising her eyebrows.”