Nadine out of her comfort zone

Nadine Lustre

For the first time, Nadine Lustre topbills a movie (“Ulan,” which opens on March 13) minus James Reid. Nadine steps out of her comfort zone as she portrays Maya, a girl who grew up alternately fascinated and fearful of the rain, stalked by storms and the “tikbalang” (the half-horse, half-human creature).

She lost her love one rainy day but continued to wait. Hopefully, the rain which has been her close companion from childhood will bring back her One True Love.

Pain, pain, go away.

Here’s my chat with Nadine:

How do you feel about not working with James? It’s something I’m not used to. Nakakapanibago. But I welcome the challenge to work with different actors, like Carlo Aquino.

How will you appease JaDine fans? I’m sure they understand. One movie doesn’t change anything between me and James.

What was James’ reaction when he found out about your movie without him? He totally supports me. We both have to grow as actors.

Story behind ‘Ulan’

Here’s writer-director Irene Villamor sharing the story behind her haunting masterpiece, “Ulan”—in her own words:

Nadine and I sat on the first day of shoot, and we talked for almost an hour. Naka-costume na s’ya nun, ready for blocking. But we sat away from the crowd and talked about what this movie means to both of us.

“Ulan” was for a film class, way back in 1999, when I created a five-minute narrative about a girl named Maya. Her dream was to climb a tree in their backyard, but her mother would always catch and reprimand her. One day, she finally climbs it and sees a fantastic view. And she was wishing her mother could also see them.

That was the “germ” of Maya’s character, and she never left me since. She evolved into a short story when I was already a script continuity supervisor for direk Joyce Bernal. Back then, in 2004, I was reading books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende—all those fantastic stories with elements of magic realism—so I wrote about Maya seeing a tikbalang. Since I love the rain, the concept fell into place. So here we are.

Hopefully, Direk Irene’s “Ulan” will take the box office by storm.