Ara Mina's comeback in Viva Films + Aga, Angel's "In the Name of Love"

Star Cinema brings together Aga Muhlach and Angel Locsin in the Olivia Lamasan film “In The Name of Love.” This is not the first time that Aga is having a leading lady that is younger than him. It’s no longer new for Aga to be paired with younger actresses.

How does Aga feel when working with young actresses? Does it make him feel old?

“I don’t feel old. Wala naman akong ibang napapansin except that when I look at their faces, at their skin, we look different. I can really see the difference when I look at them,” says the actor.

“When I see them in the morning, they look like as if they just got out of bed but when I look at myself, it seems I stayed up all night, as if I didn’t get any sleep at all,” Aga joked.

But Aga says he doesn’t feel awkward working with younger leading ladies. “I am not yet that old. I am not even 50. I am just 41. And I have kids so I can say that I am still a kid at heart,” he added.

One thing about Aga’s role in his latest movie from Star Cinema is that he’s playing a character his age. In accepting the role, Aga has to accept the fact that he’s mature and is no longer a spring chicken. Somehow, the age was one thing that initially daunted Direk Olive Lamasan in offering the role to Aga. The actor might not accept the role because of the age factor. You know, he has to protect his matinee idol image.

But Aga, in the few times that he’d bump into Direk Olive, they would talk about the idea of working together again in a movie. When “In The Name of Love” was offered to him, Aga was excited with the idea of working with Direk Olive but he didn’t realize that the movie would offer him such great challenge.

“I thought this is the perfect project. The story is good plus I will be working with Direk Olive. But this movie is probably the hardest film I’ve done – physically, emotionally, everything—because of the bigness of the film,” said Aga who hasn’t done a film with Direk Olive for a good number of years.

Aga and Angel has a love scene in the film but they didn’t feel awkward doing it. They talked with each other, in the presence of their director, before doing the love scene. Aga said people should not put malice in doing a love scene.

“When we do love scenes, we should not put malice into it. The point is you are doing a love scene for a movie, not for yourself. Besides, we are cognizant of the fact why we did the love scene and why is it important to the story. We did not do it for the sake of enjoying it,” he explains.

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For her part, Angel considers it a big honor and opportunity to be the lead actress of the new Star Cinema movie “In The Name of Love” where she co-stars opposite Aga Muhlach and Jake Cuenca.

This is also the first time that she gets handled by award-winning director Olivia Lamasan in a film project. Angel said she felt like a newcomer while doing the film. But Angel concedes she learned a lot during the entire run of the filming, which took about a year to finish. She learned how to use her eyes and to take note of her camera angles. She also studied pole dancing for three months. It was kind of hard for her to learn pole dancing but she needed it for her role in the film.

She was first to admit that dancing is not her forte. Dancing is something that she won’t do unless it is really necessary. When she first learned that she will have to do dance scenes in the movie, Angel even asked her director if she’s really whom they want for the movie’s female lead. Since she’s not that good in dancing, Angel says the role seems not designed or destined for her.

This what made doing In The Name of Love a bigger challenge for Angel. That’s why she agreed to take lessons on pole dancing to prepare her for the role, even if it meant her getting bruises in her body. And even while they were shooting the pivotal pole dancing scene, Angel also developed bruises. But this did not stop her from going on with the shoot, pleased as she was with the way Direk Olive tackled the scene. The scene that was shot for three days came out very well and Angel was able to withstand the pain and the bruises.

“In The Name of Love” opens today in more than a hundred theaters nationwide.

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After 16 years, Ara Mina makes her comeback in Viva Films. Ara signed a management contract with Viva last Monday, which also happens to be her birthday. According to Viva top boss Vic del Rosario, they had long wanted to get Ara to sign up with Viva but it was only recently that Ara said yes.

It was in Viva where Ara started her acting career. She was known then as Dara Mina when she did The Flor Contemplacion Story for Viva. It was also in Viva where Ara did her award-winning film “Ang Huling Birhen sa Lupa” for which she won two best actress awards.

Now that she’s with Viva, Ara is looking forward to doing a movie project with her sister Cristine Reyes who’s also a Viva contract artist. In fact, she did a guest role in Cristine’s latest movie titled “Tumbok” which opened last week.

Ara, who’s also in the cast of the TV5 series “Ang Utol Kong Hoodlum,” said she will discuss with Boss Vic her forthcoming projects with Viva. She might also ask Viva to distribute her new album which she has started working on. She’s also looking forward to doing a movie. The last film she did was “Anak ng Kumander” opposite Manny Pacquiao.

She has severed her ties with former manager Dondon Monteverde who was her manager for 16 years. But Ara said it was not easy. “Mahirap magpaalam. Actually, I still have to talk to him personally but I sent him a text message. Pero ‘yung text message ko nandoon na lahat kasi medyo matagal na rin kaming hindi nag-uusap ni Kuya Dondon. Nahihiya na rin naman ako magtanong kung kailan uli kami magkakaroon ng contract kasi before, the arrangement was, huwag na lang kami mag-contract kasi matagal na ako sa kanya. It’s fine with me na wala akong contract. I think he would understand. Besides, he’s also busy with his other businesses,” said Ara.

With Viva now managing her career, Ara hopes she would get more movie projects and TV shows as well.