New series ‘too close to home’ for Camille

Camille Prats

It’s all too familiar for Camille Prats.

In “Ang Forever Ko’y Ikaw,” her coming late-morning soap on GMA 7, Camille plays a struggling single mother trying to find love and move on from her late husband.

The story couldn’t be more similar to real life and too “close to home” for the actress, whose first husband, Anthony Linsangan, died in 2011 due to nasopharynx cancer. Six years later, Camille remarried, this time with John Yambao.

“Whenever I go over my lines, I couldn’t help but feel that the plot parallels what happened to me. I genuinely felt the scenes, because there were a lot of similarities. So it wasn’t hard for me to fall in love with my character, Ginny, who went through more or less the same phases I did,” she said at a press conference for the show, which started airing yesterday.

But while she’s happy with her current family life, looking back at Anthony’s death will never not be with a tinge of pain. “Whatever happens, he’ll always be a part of me. He will always be here—he’ll always be remembered,” Camille said of Anthony, with whom she has a 10-year-old son, Nathan.

“Nathan is a reminder for that part of my life,” she said.

Camille describes her marriage with John as a new chapter. And the 32-year-old actress hopes it’s for good. “I’d like to believe he’s my forever,” she said. “My family and marriage are what I have now, and those are what I’m focusing on.”

Aside from moving on, “Ang Forever Ko’y Ikaw” also touches on the concept of serendipity—the very thing that Camille believes is the reason that led her to John.

“I was content and ready to live with Nathan alone. But God always has plans for us we don’t know about—and that was exactly how I felt with John. I didn’t see it coming,” related Camille, who gave birth to Nala, her daughter with John, last September.

Her new show, unlike the heavy ones she did previously, will be a “realistic, feel-good” romantic-comedy.

Camille was initially hesitant to accept the project, because she was informed about it not too long after giving birth. “I wasn’t sure I could do it. I’m breastfeeding, and I didn’t want the stress and lack of sleep to become an issue,” she said.

But, excitement eventually won over. “You have to work hard for your career. We all get lucky from time to time, so it’s a matter of making the most out of the opportunities given to us,” Camille said.