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EXCLUSIVE: Director Irene Villamor on directing Carlo Aquino in ‘Ulan’: ‘Very generous and very magaling”

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Rhea Manila Santos

After a decade since she first wrote Ulan during her college days, director Irene Villamor said she was happy to have Nadine Lustre bring her lead role to life on the big screen. “I’m grateful. Parang ang layo na ng linakbay ng kuwento. It was almost faithful to the original concept. Para siyang pagbabalik sa dating ako. Because naunahan ko na yung script kasi hindi siya nagawa for so long. So parang binabalikan ko yung, ‘Ah ganito pala ako mag-isip dati.’ Kasi ang layo na niya from who I am now. Kaya yun ang hiningi ko kay Nadine because she’s young. Sabi ko sa kanya, ‘Hindi na ako ito. Ikaw na ‘to.’ So parang naging full circle na siya. I’m looking back na to the past, who I was before everything,” she told PUSH. After 23 shooting days on the set of Ulan, direk Irene said everything went very smoothly. And working on the chemistry between Nadine and Carlo Aquino was easy. “It was easy to build their chemistry kasi very kalog naman si Caloy. Very chill talaga kami lahat. Kasi mahirap yung ginagawa so importante na chill lang lahat (laughs). Masaya kami magkakasama eh. Carlo and Nadine were very easy to work with. Chill kami lahat,” she said.After previously working with Carlo in her first film Meet Me in St. Gallen, direk Irene said he was the obvious choice to replace Xian Lim after the latter bowed out of the project last year. “Si Carlo kaagad yung naisip ko kasi coming from Meet Me St. Gallen, I needed someone na ibibigay kay Nadine, may generosity in terms of pagbibigay ng space because this is Maya’s movie and Carlo is very generous and very magaling kasi huhugot si Nadine kasi sa kanya. Kailangan ganun yun requirement,” she explained.After Ulan, the talented director said she has another movie lined up in the romantic genre. “I have a movie pero mga secret project pa. Lagi namang romantic, parang yun yung genre. Parang dun lang natataon at saka yun yung gusto ng producers (laughs). But it’s always about how to reinvent and how to look at the genre differently. Laging ganun. Even for Meet Me in St. Gallen na may kaparehas di ba? Because idol ko si (director) Richard Linklater and his Before trilogy so dapat may iba pa rin. Dapat may something pa rin na pinaghugutan,” she said.

Director Irene Villamor reveals why Carlo Aquino was her choice to replace Xian Lim in the film.