Gerald Anderson (left) and Arci Muñoz in “Can We Still Be Friends?”
Can We Still Be Friends?” lead actress Arci Muñoz said she had to take shots of vodka with costar Gerald Anderson before filming a love scene that she described as “by far the most difficult thing I had to do in my entire career.”
“The vodka shots were to release the tension, to make us feel more comfortable. We filmed the scene in the wee hours … It was so challenging that everyone on the set was still wide awake, watching us,” she said at the recent press conference for the Star Cinema film by director Prime Cruz (opens June 14).
While shooting, Arci said Gerald was “such a gentleman. He took care of me, especially since we hardly had anything to cover ourselves with. He made sure I felt comfortable being with him.”
“It was actually I who took advantage of the situation. It was difficult not to, because his [six-pack] abs were never absent,” Arci quipped.
“Can We Still Be Friends?” is Arci and Gerald’s follow-up film to their successful onscreen partnership in Dan Villegas’ “Always Be My Maybe.”
Arci also admitted to having a crush on Gerald even before their first team-up. “Isn’t he the Zac Efron of the Philippines? I’ve always had a crush on Zac,” the actress declared.
However, Arci went on to say that she was still in the process of moving on from a painful breakup with Badi del Rosario, her beau of four years and frontman of the band, Mr. Bones and the Boneyard Circus.
Arci, who is also the vocalist of the rock band Philia, added: “I can relate to the film. Will I invite my ex-boyfriend to see this movie? I’d rather not. He can’t understand Filipino, anyway. Also, the story is so similar to ours that he might suspect I told the writer all about what happened to us.”
Just like her character Sam, Arci said hers and Badi’s was an on-again, off-again relationship. “Once, when I asked him if we could still fix things between us, he asked me: ‘Can we just be friends right now?’ I told him I’d rather not see him. I can’t be friends with someone I still love.”
Meanwhile, Gerald said he believed that it was possible to be friends with an ex. “I can genuinely and truthfully say I’m doing that right now [with his former girlfriend Kim Chiu, also his leading lady in the series, ‘Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin’]. While we’re together on the set, I ask her how she is doing. I also tell her what’s going on in my life.”
Asked whether or not it was also possible to be friends with another ex-girlfriend, actress Maja Salvador, Gerald replied: “It takes time.”
“Can We Still Be Friends?” also features Erika Padilla, Bryan Santos, Ria Atayde, Brian Sy, Gege Severo, Markki Stroem and Emmanuelle Vera.