Sue Ramirez (left) and RK Bagatsing in “Cuddle Weather”
Sue Ramirez said that, this year, she promised to take on “projects that used to scare me and materials that would challenge me.” Hence, the 23-year-old actress agreed to play the role of a sex worker in Rod Marmol’s “Cuddle Weather.”
“I don’t want to be on the safe side anymore. And while the story tackles sensitive issues, I didn’t have to worry because when my director first presented this to me, he has already set some limitations,” Sue explained to the Inquirer. “It was good that the story didn’t need toning down because we were aiming for an R-13 rating.”
Marmol described the movie as “a story on lovemaking, but less on the ‘making’ part and more on ‘loving.’” He wrote the film because, he said, he has always been “fascinated with the lives of prostitutes and call boys” and thought that they were “perfect subjects for a love story.”
Sue’s leading man in the movie, RK Bagatsing, plays Ram, also a sex worker. The two form an odd romantic setup as “cuddle partners.”
The actress admitted that, in the beginning, she had doubts as to whether her tandem with RK would work, because this was their first project together. “I knew that our roles required a certain level of comfortability between actors. For us to have good chemistry, we should at least be on talking terms already before we even started working,” she said. “But we met only on the first day of our photo shoot for the publicity poster.”
Sue said they immediately hit it off, however. “RK surprised me! He didn’t give me any reason to feel uncomfortable. I saw that he is the kind of guy who has no bad intentions,” she recalled. “Sobrang kulit lang ni RK. His energy level that day was way up there. I already felt tired just by looking at him.”
As for their sex scenes, Sue said “they were very spontaneous. We didn’t talk about them before each take. We attended a workshop, but it was more about discussing our different personality traits rather than creating chemistry.”
Working on “Cuddle Weather” has taught Sue a valuable lesson. “That we often look for someone to blame for the things we hate about our lives, when in fact, it’s really us who caused them,” she pointed out. “Adela, my character, is a lonely person. Nagbibigay siya ng aliw for a living, but when she is on her own, she feels sad and unwanted.”
The actress added: “We should always think progressively. It’s up to us to change things for the better. No matter what people say, it’s still our personal decision that will prevail in the end.”
Sue said it’s about time that the local film audience be offered a story like this. “A film that will open people’s minds, tell them not to judge other people right away simply on the basis of what these individuals do for a living. Everybody has his own problems. We just have to be more open-minded and sensitive about what we say.”