Bea: Acting is not about lessons

Bea Alonzo, Acting, Celebrities, ABS-CBN, Endorsements

Bea Alonzo says she wakes up each day wanting to be a better person. She’s scored major and minor victories, and these days, the personal “demons” she’s determined to conquer are “being envious” and “feeling insecure.”

She would not say who or what of, but simply declared: “I must face and [put an end to] all my fears.”

The ABS-CBN talent, who met the press at her recent launch as Clear (anti-dandruff shampoo) “brand ambassador,” would do everything to get something she wants, but she knows better than to push it too far.

She explained: “When you have a problem, if you think the world is unfair and people aren’t giving you [what] you deserve, you offer it to God. But maybe there’s something that you’re not doing right.” If it’s not meant to be, she said, “I easily let go.”

Bea has formulated a healthy approach to acting as well. Having acquired basic training via workshops, she sharpened her skills, she said, with the help of mentors Lauren Dyogi and Johnny Manahan. (“Mr. M is like a father to me.”)

But acting, she pointed out, is not about lessons learned: “It’s [about] you … how you observe people, how you recognize and manage your own feelings, every one of them—happiness, fear, pain … ”

It’s best to draw from experience, Bea said. Her most difficult role ever, she recounted, was playing a 21-year-old lawyer in the ABS-CBN series “Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay.” That was almost 10 years ago, when she was only 14. “I knew nothing about the law but I needed to be credible as a very smart person,” she recalled. Direk Dyogi patiently explained every detail of every scene to her, she said.

Another movie portrayal that proved very close to home was in last year’s “Sa ’Yo Lamang,” about a happy family ruined by adultery. “I come from a broken family,” the actress explained. “That role made me realize many things. I found myself saying, Ah, ganito pala ang nangyari sa akin.” Prior to that, she said, she had little time to examine her life.

Hot male costars

And she’s had just as little time since. Bea just finished a movie and is currently working on an ABS-CBN teleserye, with two of the hottest male stars, no less—Vic Sotto for the full-length comedy picture “Pak!Pak! My Dr. Kwak!” and Robin Padilla for the romantic action series “Guns and Roses.”

Because the two men are not alike at all, she said, it’s a different environment around each one. First time she came to the set of Vic’s film, she related, “I really felt like the newcomer. The other cast members had long worked together, so they knew one another well. Still, they welcomed me. I had a great experience with them.”

As for working with Robin, Bea said, “May halong kilig (It was thrilling). He’s a romantic, a gentleman to everyone on the set.” Vic is more of the silent type, she added. “But they’re both very professional and passionate about their job.”

School must wait

Bea was in second year high school when she started acting, but continuing her education is not on her plate right now. “Perhaps I’ll go back to school when I’m not too active in show biz anymore,” she said.

Meanwhile, she sends her relatives to school and, for “focus and inspiration,” she reads and reads. On her shelf are books by Mitch Albom and Paolo Coelho, plus Portia de Rossi’s “Unbearable Lightness” and Tod Burpo’s “Heaven Is for Real.” Because these writers are “really good,” she said, “I have a tendency to internalize their characters.”

Bea is looking forward to a trip with her family to the United States later this year. It would be her brother James’ first time in America. “He gets airsick, but he’s excited about watching an NBA game,” said Bea, who has just become an NBA fan herself.

She recently bought a new condo unit in Rockwell for her mother. The whole family will soon transfer there from a rented place in Ortigas.

It’s clear that her “greatest purpose,” as she put it, “is to provide [well] for my family. That’s why God gives me all these blessings.”