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Regine
Velasquez Happy, Blessed and Complete
by Ruben M. Cruz Jr.
Phil. Daily Inquirer 2.9.03
Concept of celebrity
OUR culture is obsessed by the concept of celebrity. How else can
one explain the plague of publicity that descends on actors, singers
and other public figures when they make appearances, or the
popularity of gossip magazines and TV shows?
Celebrities are like royalty-glamorous and untouchable, they become
objects of unreasonable adulation.
But there are real people behind the luminous images we see on
multiplex screens, TV, wall-size posters and billboards.
These are the ones we want to know -- or the ones we think we want
to know, since, as in everything else in reality, the real lives of
these people we idolize might often fall short of our expectations.
In any case, a bustling movie set, with its whole caboose of
distractions, is not the best place to interview celebrity artists,
not when you intend to ask them questions that you hope would lead
to moments of silence, the kind of silence you get when truths are
about to be told.
It's hard to imagine how such revelations could be gotten here,
among crew members and filmmakers, amid all the work that needs to
be done to create the illusions that motion pictures peddle to
hope-hungry masses. This is the world of stars-more surreal than
anything you've ever seen in films depicting the world of stars.
But I was being presumptuous. Because, to begin with, even in a less
busy, more ponderous and playful atmosphere, I might not have the
questions that would induce the moments of silence and truths that I
spoke of. And, as I would find out later, even if I did have those
questions, Regine Velasquez is not the celebrity upon whom those
questions would work.
I would have loved to see Regine in a moment of diva pique, to hear
her in a forlorn voice talk about how every facet of her life is
splashed around like entertainment. I imagined myself nodding and
showing sympathy for the public scrutiny that has made her even more
incandescent and out of reach. But such was not to happen. Regine is
not a wild, unreal creature in need of taming and realness. On the
contrary, she was as real as she could get, considering that she had
to talk to a stranger, in between takes, a stranger who asked
questions that had nothing to do with the movie she's doing
("Pangarap Kong Ibigin Ka" with Christopher De Leon) or the concert
she's promoting ("Songbird sings Legrand," at the PICC on the Feb.
14, 15 and 16).
Regine rises from her chair after the nth take of a particular
scene. For a moment before we were introduced, I thought I saw a
look that seemed to say, "Oh no, not another interview."
"Tired?" I asked. "No, it's okay," she replies smiling instantly.
Pleasantries
She excuses herself to change for another scene and manages more
than a modicum of grace and luminescence as she exchanges
pleasantries with some of the film crew along the way.
I know stars like Regine are required to turn on the wattage that
makes people melt in their presence, but a member of the crew swears
her niceness is genuine. Later, Regine herself would say that she
makes a conscious effort to be nice to everybody all the time.
"I would always be asked that question: How do you want to be
remembered? And I used to give those standards answers like, 'a
performer who gives it everything she's got,' 'a great singer' or
whatever. But, really, I just want to be remembered as a nice
person. I make quite an effort to be one," she says.
"The fame thing isn't really real," Julia Roberts' character, Anna
Scott, said in the film "Notting Hill," and she may have been right.
Regine, if she was not popular, could have been just a girl, one
who's comfortable with herself, a pleasure to talk to, even if we
only talked for a while.
She's a completely ordinary mortal who is perhaps better at being
diffident, abashed and self-effacing than most of us. And unlike
Anna Scott or Francine, her character in that movie she did with
Robin Padilla ("Kailangan Ko'y Ikaw"), she doesn't think fame has
been a handicap to her personal happiness. It hasn't been the
corrupting force that has made a lot of other celebrities miserable.
She actually likes being the Regine Velasquez she is now.
"I'm very contented with my life. It could be better, but I don't
think I have the right to complain. Ever since I was a little girl,
I have always wanted to be a singer. Maybe I didn't dream about
being an actor, but I always wanted to be a performer. I wanted to
make albums and do concerts," she said. "Everything I dreamed of, I
got them all. Of course, I had to work very hard to get them, but I
got them."
I asked her: "Has there ever been a time you thought you're in the
wrong business? Do you ever miss anything about being anonymous?
"I don't want to be anyone else. I feel really blessed living this
life," she says. "You know what, people say this job is very hard,
and it is. But in any job you have to work hard to achieve whatever
it is that you want. This job is relatively easy. Sure mahirap siya
because of the schedule, but I would not exchange it for anything.
Because of this business I was able to help my family, napagtapos ko
sa pag-aaral yung mga kapatid ko, which I consider a great
achievement, and best of all, I'm being paid for something I love to
do!"
It's hard to argue with success, but still, I wondered, shall I take
her word more or less at face value or is she just turning on that
wattage again? Her life surely can't be without its quibbles.
Regine would admit that she has some, but they turn out to be
quibbles that one would most likely hear from just about any busy
body, not just from a superstar.
For instance, she rues about not having the time to watch the films
that she'd really like to watch on the big screen, like "The Lord of
the Rings: The Two Towers." She tells me the last movie she saw in a
theater was "A Walk To Remember," where she cried along with most of
the people in the audience.
She also can't remember the last time she dated and says it would be
nice if she could do so this year. She says she'd like to have a
boyfriend, but even when she macroscopically grapples with the
problem of love, she sounds very "un-movie-like."
She's not waiting for a prince charming to save her from anything.
"I feel I'm complete. And I'm flattered when people say that I don't
seem to need a man to make me happy because that's true. I'm already
happy. I don't need a partner to make me happy. I should be happy. I
should be complete. When I get a partner he's not going to be able
to fill up what's missing in me because, that's me," she says.
"Sometimes, you don't even know what's missing in you. You yourself
have to figure it out and make yourself whole, not someone else!"
"If somebody interesting comes along, he'll just add new colors to
my life. I've always thought like that. I don't want to settle for
just anyone. I won't go into a relationship just for the sake of
having a boyfriend. I want to really be in love. The guy doesn't
even have to love me back. All I'd care about is that I love him,"
she adds, then jokes that her last sentence would probably encourage
more than a few callers.
Just Regine
I asked her what she would do if she found out she only had a few
days to live. She said she would eat everything, find a partner to
go dancing with, then travel to Venice and die there.
I half expected her to say something more reflective or dramatic,
like she would hug her family, tell them she loves them, and try to
right all the wrong things she has done. But I wasn't talking to
someone who rarely spends a quiet day ensconced in the peaceful
presence of the people she loves. I was talking to a dutiful
daughter who still goes home to her family in Bulacan and who enjoys
staying home, eating, sleeping and shooting the breeze with her
family whenever she has no work.
"I believe my character hasn't changed. I never bring my work home.
When I go home to Bulacan, I'm just Regine the daughter or Regine
the sister. I still wear my Islander tsinelas. I still eat with my
hands. I'd like to think I've grown but I'm still very much
childlike," she says.
She beams when I ask her about her mother, Tessie, someone who is
rarely mentioned in the publicity about her, but who, Regine
professes, is just as instrumental as her father Gerry is in her
success as a performer, as well as in keeping her grounded in
reality.
"My mom plays the piano and the guitar. She played a big part in my
musical training, although my dad gets most of the publicity because
he always accompanies me, and because my mom is shy. She's a true
blue probinsyana. She's very conservative. Even now, there are some
things about this business that she still doesn't understand,"
Regine says.
Although her dad, she adds, is "the joker in the family," Regine
thinks she got her natural cheerfulness from her mom.
"My mom is the funniest human being I've ever met. She has this
incredible sense of humor. She finds humor in anything and
everything. She's also very malambing. She always tells me she loves
me. When I talk to her on the phone, she says I love you, even when
we're just on the Intercom, she says I love you. She's so sweet!"
I always believed that to be rich, beautiful and famous is to risk
losing ordinary human happiness. Life, if not altogether fair,
should at least provide some bargaining chips for the burdened, some
leverage to the many people who are struggling to stay afloat and
eke out a living.
Common people should at least be able to experience the simple joys
that the rich, beautiful and famous can't because of their
privileged lives. That should be the tradeoff.
But then, maybe before me, this person who's been bucking the odds
since she was a child deserves to be the exception.
Maybe she deserves to be spared the double-edged sword of celebrity.
Maybe, as the proverb goes, she deserves to have her cake and eat
it, too.
Why not, if she's remained true to herself? Why not this Regine, who
doesn't have a gilded cage story to tell, whose life in the rarefied
realms of fame doesn't need to be brought down to earth, for there
her feet are and have always been firmly planted?
If there is any celebrity who keeps us alive in the darkness and
whose happiness we should wish for in turn, I guess it should be
her. |
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