Far from it. In fact, it doesn’t bother her at all.
"It has never made me insecure," swears Ara, who is back doing sexy movies after going tame in the Rudy Fernandez starrer Diskarte last June.
If anything, Ara is happy for the likes of Lolita de Leon, Maui Taylor and Aubrey Miles, who are trekking the same path Ara took when she was launched in Init sa Tag-Ulan.
"I went through the intrigues they’re experiencing now. I would say I’m a graduate of those intrigues ," she explains, self-assurance written all over her face.
Ara singles out Aubrey Miles as the more promising of the current crop of new boldies.
"It’s not because Aubrey is also a fellow Regal star. It’s just that she has a good (singing) voice. She’s different from the rest," Ara observes.
She should know. Ara has weathered the worst intrigues, including being accused as the culprit of Aiko Melendez-Jomari Yllana split-up.
"That intrigue really affected me," Ara looks back. "People nagged me about Jomari everywhere I went. But I just told myself that this, too, shall pass. It’s part of being in showbiz."
And it did. Ara would like to think that what she got in exchange for "all my sacrifices" was a shower of blessings.
She is cast as the bored wife of a renowned psychologist (played by Albert Martinez) in Regal Films’ Two-Timer, classified R18 without cuts by the MTRCB (Movie and Television Review and Classification Board).
Unlike those plain housewife roles where Ara donned simple dusters and looked like some forgotten person wasting away in the four corners of the bedroom, Two-Timer sees her in glamorous attires by Maldita.
"I play a boutique owner who supports charitable institutions," explains Ara.
This highly-respected image, however, masks a dark character who two-times her husband, simply because she has an extra dose of uh, the most basic instincts available to man .
Let your imagination conjure the most sensual images, as Ara carries on a red-hot affair with a DJ (Wendell Ramos) who loves drugs and race cars.
It’s the sizzling Laro sa Baga, Sagad sa Init and Banatan all over again for Ara.
Unlike before though, Ara is taking a break from all that baring. She shifts to nonsexy mode in Regal Films’ Metro Manila Filmfest bet, Mano Po, which was partly shot in China. Taken in as instant replacement for the then unpredictable Assunta de Rossi, Ara had to learn her new role – that of a funky person with matching nose earring – fast.
Then, it will be Kristal with director Mel Chionglo next year. In-between, Ara goes wacky in Bubble Gang and weepy in Kung Mawawala Ka for GMA-7.
All that hard work is going somewhere. Osteria Italia, the stylish restaurant along Tomas Morato st., Quezon City, which she co-owns with the Asedillo family, will turn a year old in February. Ara’s younger sister Heidi runs the show as manager.
The sisters also own a video shop in Santolan.
Ara’s P8-M home in Ferndale, somewhere in Commonwealth, Quezon City, is an extension of Osteria Italia. Like the Italian restaurant, the three-bedroom house has a soothing fountain. An angel-shaped antique candle Ara bought to the tune of P25,000 stands guard in the yellow living room accented by touches of gold and black.
The house has Ara’s knack for interior design written all over it.
"I myself chose the yellow-gold cloth of the living room sofa," she reports, her voice ringing with excitement.
Excitement is something Ara will never run out of, as she continues to re-invent herself in this age of new bold stars whose careers she can only watch with a been-there-done-that feeling.