Stardom is within Julie Anne's reach

My next bet for big-time stardom among today’s young generation of talents is Party Pilipinas regular Julie Anne San Jose.

Her career path seems to be trekking the similar road earlier taken by most other female superstars. Like Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos, Sharon Cuneta, Maricel Soriano and Judy Ann Santos, Julie Anne also started in showbiz at a young age.

At 11, she joined the Q-11 talent search Pop Star Kids where she emerged as one of the finalists to grand champion Rita Iringan, who should also be given her big break since she is fast growing into a lovely lady.

That early, however, Julie Anne was already starting to develop her own following, especially after musical director Danny Tan formed Sugar Pop Kids where she was taken in as a member. Her following increased when her group was featured regularly in the now-defunct SOP Sunday noontime show of GMA 7.

While she was with SOP, she was tapped to sing the theme songs of some of the network’s most popular programs: Dyesebel, The Last Prince and later, Pilyang Kerubin. She also did an acting stint as the sister of Camille Prats in the TV remake of Gaano Kadalas ang Minsan?

Today, Julie Anne is already 16 and has a successful team-up with Elmo Magalona in Party Pilipinas. Every other week, they have a regular musical production that follows a storyline. Directed by Rico Gutierrez, it is based on the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. Its title: Elmo and Julie Anne – A Wazak Love Story.

But instead of Shakespearean dialogue that would bore today’s youth and drive them to Sunday siesta, the musical production done rap style uses Gloc9 hits. Tomorrow is the Wazak Love Story’s finale and the team behind it swears there will be a twist toward the end that not even the great Bard would have imagined could work.

This final installment of their rap musical is much awaited by the fans of Elmo and Julie Anne, who are collectively known as Julielmo.     

But are they really an item off-screen? Elmo already stated in a previous Startalk episode that he doesn’t want to be associated with a love team. This may be part of a career move since as showbiz history shows, most leading men in love teams get left out in the cold when the leading lady gets launched solo and succeeds on her own.

Of course, the Julielmos are hoping that the Elmo and Julie Anne tandem would develop into something more serious even behind the camera.

Now, I may be stirring a hornet’s nest with this revelation, but it’s no secret in gossip mills that Jay Perillo, who is rumored to be Kris Bernal’s real squeeze, was linked to Julie Anne from the time they were paired in their own musical production also in Party Pilipinas. And now, Jay is the nemesis of Elmo’s character in A Wazak Love Story. Observe Jay’s body language toward Julie Anne. People around them notice how the singer is extra sweet toward her.

But this is the biggest shocker that may spark yet another EDSA revolution. I hardly touch gossip in this column, but this item is too delicious to pass up. I was told by a very reliable source that Joshua Dionisio, the screen partner of Barbie Forteza, had recently developed a huge crush on Julie Anne. No less than Barbie herself noticed this and had been needling Joshua about it. It all started almost a month ago — when Barbie and Joshua were making the rounds of GMA 7 shows to promote Nita Negrita.

Party Pilipinas was one of their destinations and during a technical rehearsal Joshua couldn’t hide his infatuation toward Julie Anne. You have to understand that Joshua is 15-turning-16 — with raging hormones and all, while Barbie is only — what? 12?

Now, I hope Joshua-Barbie fans don’t initiate an assassination attempt against Julie Anne. Not her fault. Based on what somebody close to her told me, she will not even encourage Joshua since she hardly has time between her studies as a mass communications freshman at Angelicum (she may move to UP to pursue theater arts) and all her showbiz commitments.

I don’t mean to create havoc among their respective fans, but I suggest that their followers allow these young screen idols to get exposed to other leading men and ladies and not peg them with simply just one partner on TV and in the movies.

Again, try tracing the career patterns taken by our female superstars and you’ll notice that they also went through a rigodon of screen partners.

That will be part of Julie Anne’s growth as a performer. Let’s just wait for what happens next, but I am not backing out of my bet that Julie Anne San Jose is on her way to major, major stardom.