Piolo Pascual (left) and Toni Gonzaga
Actress Toni Gonzaga said she couldn’t believe director Joyce Bernal was able to convince her into doing a bathtub scene.
“I only wore a shirt and didn’t wear any bottoms,” revealed Toni at a recent media gathering. “Piolo had his pants on when we shot that scene.”
“I don’t know how my family will react to it. I feel like I’m turning into a sexy star!” the 33-year-old actress quipped. “I wonder how the audience will accept that scene; they’d probably vomit at the sight of me.”
Irony of love
Coproducer Neil Arce said he loved Piolo and Toni’s bathtub scene.
“It’s not shown in the trailer, but it’s the weirdest and most romantic scene for me. It’s where we see the irony of love. I can’t say much about it—otherwise, I’ll spoil the movie for everyone.”
“Last Night,” conceptualized by Arce and actress Bela Padilla, will be shown on Sept. 27 in cinemas nationwide.
For Piolo, his favorite part of the movie was the scene he and Toni did with underwater cinematographer Marissa Floirendo.
First time
“To make sure we don’t float, they tied an air-condition machine around me; on Toni, a bed frame. That was scary,” recalled Piolo. “It was also the first time in Philippine cinema that the underwater camera called Arri Alexa Mini was used. The scene came out crisp and sharp. It’s amazing!”
Toni said that working on the movie also helped her tick off one item on her bucket list: bungee jumping.
The final seconds of the movie’s three-minute trailer reveals Toni dangling from the Jones Bridge on Rosario street in Manila, calling for help.
“It was my first scene on the film’s first shooting day. Direk Joyce made me hang there for God knows how long. I also lost count of how many times she made me jump off Jones Bridge,” Toni said.
“I felt like I already had several sessions of bungee jumping, so I will not do it anymore. I just crossed that out of my bucket list,” she said.
Fear of heights
Toni confessed that she was afraid of heights, “just like Direk Joyce,” but added that she had gained confidence after seeing the director do the scene herself.
Joyce disclosed that they hired a reliable rigging team to ensure their safety.
“They’re the same people who do the rigging for Jackie Chan. The rigs were also of the same materials used in the ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise. They helped us rehearse in the studio and on the set, then assisted us in mounting the scene,” the director shared with reporters.
Celebration of love, life
On their latest film, Toni and Piolo stressed that it is not about people who commit suicide as a result of their failure in love, but rather its opposite.
“Yes, there will come a time when you’d just want to end everything because what’s been happening to you is already too much to handle. You will reach that low point in your life, and you’ll say it’s better to just stop living, but it’s at that point, too, when God will give you answers,” Toni declared.
Piolo added: “In the movie…[the characters] realize that it’s wrong to think of ending life just because you can’t find ways to fix what you think is wrong about it at present.”
Toni said that rather than focusing on death, “the movie will celebrate love and life.”