Sharon Cuneta
Megastar Sharon Cuneta ended 2017 on a high note: A few days before her 52nd birthday (on Jan. 6), she landed on an online list of the hottest female stars in the country—along with a bunch of twentysomethings and teeners. Not bad for someone who’s been in the biz for four decades.
To think, the year-that-was started a bit slow for her. While waiting and waiting for the planned reunion movie with erstwhile partner Gabby Concepcion, she found herself producing and starring in her first indie film, Mes de Guzman’s “Ang Pamilyang Hindi Lumuluha,” which was shown at the UP Cine Adarna in Diliman on her birthday weekend.
She told the Inquirer: “2017 was just OK. I was part of two top-rating ABS-CBN shows: ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar’ and ‘The Voice Philippines Teens.’”
She was just coasting along, until her comeback Star Cinema movie with Robin Padilla (which had replaced the Gabby flick) cropped up.
“Then, ‘Unexpectedly Yours’ hit the theaters and my career and life changed and has been on the upswing since…in a span of two months,” she related. “After several years of uncertainty, questions that I had no answers to, God gave me a real unexpectedly amazing gift in the last quarter.”
Inspired anew
Cathy Garcia-Molina’s “Unexpectedly Yours” earned over P218 million at the tills and was shown for a month.
It was a much-needed shot in the arm, she said. “Now, I am inspired anew, refreshed in body and spirit and wanting to hit the ground running.”
Speaking of her much-talked-about bod… “It’s still shrinking. And I’m hangry—hungry and angry!”
Professionally, she’s all gung-ho. “After years of doing what seemed close to nothing, I find that now I am running ahead of coworkers and being impatient because it’s just not possible to come up with movie projects as fast as I’m presently moving!”
It’s an exhilarating high. “I am overwhelmed and still in disbelief over this year being my 40th anniversary as a singer and 38th as an actor. Please add that I was a fetus when I joined show biz, ha!”
She quipped: “Millennials are monopolizing almost the entire industry, and I feel like a perennial! But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
To start 2018 with a bang, she is embarking on a concert tour, which will kick off at Cebu Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Cebu on Jan. 13.
“The tour will be done in installments, but I hope to hit as many cities at home and abroad within the year. The big, celebratory event will be at the Araneta Coliseum in the third or last quarter of the year.”
She is also “considering doing a teleserye if the taping schedule were reasonable,” she pointed out. “I work hard, anyway.”
Shooting “Unexpectedly Yours” proved to be the perfect ice-breaker for her. “It brought my body clock back to working mode—meaning, no or very little sleep every day. So a teleserye schedule shouldn’t be such a drastic change in my habits, as someone from the old school…Jurassic period!”’
Unafraid
She said, in jest: “Better walang tulog kesa walang gising. Better tumanda kesa mamatay! I am not that afraid of growing old because I’m the child of my parents, who looked 35 when they were already 50—especially my mom (Elaine Cuneta). My dad (Pasay Mayor Pablo Cuneta) looked fine, but he was bald!”
There’s also a new album under Star Music in the works. “I can’t wait to finish it. I want to star in more TV shows—sana my own again. But anything really that would allow me to work with my favorite people, like Ogie Alcasid.”
On the big screen, she wishes “to work with both male and female stars, but always with Robin. Maybe Richard [Gomez], too, if the mayor still welcomes show biz projects.”
She admitted: “I have a long list and for me to be able to check all the items off it, I’ll have to do 10 movies a year starting now!”
On the personal front, “I will pay special attention to my health and (OK, OK!) maybe start working out (I hate it!). Also, the diet, though my tummy is used to eating so little now. I’ve fooled it into thinking we are still a toddler who can only eat so much.”
All in all, she asserted, “it has been a glorious end for 2017 and, with God’s help, it’ll be an even more glorious 2018!”