SHARON Cuneta
Most of the time, when stars get into the “breaking” news, it’s about the latest in their career or personal relationships.
Increasingly of late, however, show biz celebrities are hitting the front pages in non-entertainment news contexts, like the recent revelation that fugitive Mexican drug lord El Chapo (Joaquin Guzman Loera) was involved in secret talks with acclaimed Hollywood actor Sean Penn, about a possible biopic that could turn out to be hot off the headlines!
Reports also have it that another show biz personality, Latino actress Kate del Castillo, helped arrange the furtive meeting between Penn and El Chapo—before he was recaptured.
Naturally, that got a lot of people interested in finding out more about the actress, who’s not well-known internationally. Here’s the lowdown on her:
Del Castillo began her acting career way back in 1978, but became popular when she appeared in a telenovela, “Muchachitas.”
In 2011, she was cited as one of the “25 most influential women” and “50 most beautiful” by People en Español magazine.
Her latest acting assignment, logically enough, is on the satirical comedy series, “Telenovela,” starring Eva Longoria. She’s also known for her advocacies with the Mexican Commission on Human Rights and the Blue Heart campaign against human trafficking.
So, how did she get involved with El Chapo? She was contacted by Guzman’s lawyer to talk about producing a biographical film in 2014, and she brokered the Penn-El Chapo interview in October last year, before Mexican Marines recaptured the fugitive crime kingpin. Penn and Del Castillo’s actions are under investigation.
Room for improvement
The start of a new show biz year is exactly the right time for starlets and even stars to objectively evaluate their plus and minus points, with the determined goal of improving their career prospects.
The key word is objectively, because many performers are surrounded by “yes” men and women who do their crafty best and worst to make the talents they work for believe in their own “praise” releases.
After all, the “yes” people know only too well that most talents who are told the truth about their minus points don’t like it one bit, and end up firing the “no” people for their well-meaning, but sometimes brutal, honesty!
Well, we don’t work for any star or starlet, so we’d like to remind everybody, including our personal faves, that there’s always room for improvement! So, try to pay attention—and don’t take it personally:
Sharon Cuneta is ticked off with us for nagging her about her excessive weight and girth, because it’s negatively affecting her performance.
But, it’s important to us that stars hold on to their hard-won stardom, continue to be healthy, and remain positive role models for their many followers.
So, Sharon’s focus in 2016 should be to fight her way back to her old fighting form.
Young singer-actor Juan Karlos Labajo is too self-consciously pa-cute for his own good, which is why his career isn’t heating up as much as other young comers, in a crowded field paced by Bailey May.
Labajo should belatedly learn to focus on the character he’s assigned to play, not on his pa-cute image and persona.
Another starlet who’s coming up short is Miguel Tanfelix, who is supposed to be a hot young comer as dancer and actor on GMA 7, but has actually failed to pass muster. Most recently, his cohosting performance on “StarStruck” was skittish and unfocused.
Tanfelix’s star continues to rise this season, as he’s been given another drama series on GMA 7.
To do well in his new show, he has to improve his thin speaking voice and learn how to really focus on creating a new character, instead of just playing minor variations of himself.
Speaking of thin or grating speaking voices, 2016 should also be the year for Kim Chiu, Pokwang, Ai-Ai delas Alas and other “vocally compromised” talents to solve their distracting and limiting problem.
Performers should have no distracting limitations because they get in the way of the communicating process—and inhibit their ability to believably and affectingly create a wide range of different characters.