Cris: The opposite of her Lola Midz

Curtain-raisers:

•  Is a finalist of a star search a Bilmoko Boy? A lady writer strongly suspected that he is. Recently, she saw the boy at an A-list department store lugging branded clothes paid for by a rich-looking gay. When the BB saw the lady writer, he quickly disengaged himself from his benefactor and, looking away, pretended he didn’t see the lady writer who had interviewed him when the star search was on its final stretch. There’s a report that the boy (with foreign blood) used to work in a gay bar, not as a dancer he claimed but as a waiter.
• Could it be true that the current squeeze of a currently very visible actress in TV is the young businessman who is the former boyfriend of a TV newscaster and, before her, an internationally-known singer-actress? The TV actress is separated from her husband (now also segment reporter of a network) whom she caught philandering (they don’t have a child).
• And could it be true that a certain actress usually starts cooking up an issue against her actor-husband because, since the husband is busy at work, she feels left out? It’s her “hobby,” according to somebody close to the couple. “Nagpapapansin siya,” she said of the actress. “She’s the best example of the saying that the devil preys on idle minds.”

The oft-quoted line (reworded) “like grandmother, like granddaughter” doesn’t hold true for Cris Villonco, the multi-talented apo who claimed that she’s the opposite of her Lola Armida (“Tita Midz” Siguion-Reyna).

“She’s one of a kind,” said Cris, a veteran of the more than two dozen plays that she has done in her 20 years in the business. “When it comes to my Lola, hahahahahahaha!,” added Cris who couldn’t stop laughing, “isa lang ang star sa pamilya at hindi kami ‘yon.”

But for sure, Cris gets pointers from Lola Midz.

“If there’s anything that she’s concerned about,” admitted Cris, “it’s my Tagalog. People kasi would tell me, ‘You studied in IS, how come your Tagalog is like that? It was my Lola pointing it out to me, kasi naman since I was nine years old I’ve been recording na for my Lola’s show Aawitan Kita, di ba? So kapag hindi ko makuha-kuha ang difference between puso (heart) and poso (water pump), she would send me home. If I pronounce Tagalog words with an American accent, magagalit na ‘yan. She would settle for nothing less than perfect diction.”

What about, well, dealing with industry people?

“A hindi,” Cris protested, half in jest, “I cannot talk to her about dealing with people; she just screams at them!”

But these days when her Lola Midz seems to be slowing down (after the death of her husband, lawyer Leonardo Siguion-Reyna, a few years ago), Cris said that she’s been keeping a close watch on her.

“Basta,” she said with relief, “kapag may inaaway ‘yan, okey pa ‘yan. It’s when she’s not fighting with anybody that we should be worried.”

Starting with playing the Little Cosette in the Repertory production of Les Miserables, Cris has graduated to bigger roles (as, among others, Ophelia in Hamlet for which she won the 2008 Gawad Buhay Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play; as Anne in Little Night Music; Waverly in The Joy Luck Club; as Maria Clara in Noli Me Tangere for which she also won the Gawad Buhay Best Actress in a Musical Award in 2011; as Maria Rainer in The Sound of Music; and, currently, in the PETA debut production of D’Wondertwins of Boac, a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night).

A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in New York in 2006, with a bachelor’s degree in Music & Economic Development, Cris counts as another “high” in her career her performance at the St. Peter’s Square in 2000 for a jubilee Mass officiated by Pope John Paul II. That same year, she was featured in Time (International Edition) as a Hero of the Planet. A few years ago, she was a star attraction in shows at Hong Kong Disneyland.

After years of doing plays for Repertory Philippines, Atlantis Productions, Inc., Tanghalang Pilipino and other companies, Cris has decided to put up her own theater company called Red Turnip, together with fellow thespians Rem Zamora, Jenny Jamora, Ana Abad Santos and Topper Fabregas. 

Surprisingly (maybe by choice), Cris has done only one movie so far, as the daughter of FPJ in Ang Dalubhasa.

“FPJ saw me on a Pop Cola billboard at the back of a truck,” recalled Cris. “He said, ‘’Yan, ‘yang batang ‘yan ang gusto ko,’ without knowing that apo ako ni Armida. Nagulat si FPJ when he learned about it.”

The sad news is that, according to Cris, 29, she didn’t have any Valentine this year. Has she never had any?

“Of course, not! I went steady with my last boyfriend for five years,” she confessed (the boy was a Manahan; Cris was also rumored to have been “courted “ by Makati Mayor Junjun  Binay). “I must admit na mahirap akong pakisamahan. I broke up with (the Manahan guy) because of conflict of directions; he wanted something else and I wanted something else. I guess that’s my being a Siguion-Reyna — you know, everything is set, ito ang gusto ko, this is what I want, this is what I’m gonna do, and I’m aggressive about it. ‘Yon na ‘yon I can be very flexible but I’m very driven that way. So kapag hindi ka makasabay sa pagka-driven ko, patay tayo, wala na!,” adding with a sigh, “Sa totoo lang, humahanap ako ng isang Leonardo Siguion-Reyna. He can control you without being obvious about it. My Lolo never made my Lola feel like she was powerless. When he died, my Lola realized that my Lolo was the wind beneath her wings.”

Incidentally, Cris said that she has gotten over the break-up of her parents’ marriage (her mom is Tita Midz’s daughter Monique). Cris is the second of three daughters.

“At that time,” said Cris, a certain sadness crossing her face, “many hurting words were exchanged and I regret it. I was very upset and very angry at that time. But even to this day, I cannot blame anyone anymore because, you know, so many have also happened in my life. I realized that you can’t explain why things would lead to…you know.

“I was naïve then and I lashed out without thinking, and even my mom got hurt when I rebelled that way. It wasn’t exactly because of my dad. I was just upset, I was very angry, I was asking myself, ‘Bakit ganoon? Why did my parents have to separate?’ 

“To this day, I make up for it with my dad. I communicate with him, I spend time with him. I’m glad that my dad and my mom have become the best of friends. They call each other regularly. I can tell my dad that I’m sorry for what I have said and I really, really regret it, and I think he knows it.”

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