Fist bump with Shailene Woodley and other Hollywood encounters

As soon as Shailene Woodley walked into a function room of Four Seasons for a one-on-one with The STAR during the Divergent junket in Los Angeles, she broke into a wide smile and did a fist bump with me. Cool gal, very much like the “dangerous” character Beatrice of the Abnegation family that she plays in the trilogy based on the best-seller by Veronica Roth.

“Hi, I’m Shai,” she addressed not just me but also everybody in the room and then gave them a hug. Sweet girl, very physically affectionate, describing herself as a divergent in real life because, she justified, “our brains are complex,” adding with a twinkle in her eyes, “Beatrice sort of diverges from what is expected, and I think there’s something beautiful about doing that…with integrity. I’m somebody who confronts challenges in life head-on. We are here for a reason; we have to deal with challenges in life as they come.”

Her star-making turn in Divergent came on the heels of her absorbing performance as George Clooney’s rebellious daughter in the 2011 drama The Descendants for which she won Best Supporting Actress in the Independent Spirit Awards and a Golden Globe nomination (same category). After Divergent, Shailene  made the world shed tears in The Fault in Our Stars in which she and Anselle Elgort (as her brother in Divergent) play cancer-stricken lovers. Will Shailene “fist bump” with me again when I see her for the Insurgent (the second installment from the trilogy) in March?

When Divergent leading man Theo James learned that I came from the Philippines, his eyes lit up. “I am a big Manny Pacquiao fan,” he confessed. “I’m looking forward to meeting him in person.” It was my second interview with James after the one for Underworld: Awakening in 2012 when he revealed that he trained with a Filipino martial-artist on Arnis de Mano. “I also trained with another Filipino on knife skills,” added James, “but we didn’t use Arnis de Mano in Divergent but more mixed Thai martial arts.”

That first close encounter with Hollywood stars in early March 2014 was followed by many more.

The next encounter was with Andrew Garfield and girlfriend Emma Stone, plus co-star Jamie Foxx, in Singapore for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the same event where a heels-wearing Kris Aquino (with sons Joshua and Bimby who are Spider-Man fans) crossed the long bridge from the Marina Bay Sands Hotel to The Merlion site for the Earth Hour highlight).

Four months earlier, Super Typhoon Yolanda devastated Eastern Visayas and virtually wiped Tacloban City from the map. “Oh God,” said Garfield (who replaced Toby Maguire in the title role), “if only Spider-Man were real, he would have come to the rescue of the victims,” adding, “If I were Spider-Man, I would be a great ambassador over there and help out. I’d love to go to the Philippines as Spider-Man.”

Asked to describe Garfield out of his Spider-Man costume, Stone said, “He’s funny just like how Spider-Man is in the comic book. He’s witty and very energetic.”

Foxx, the first black actor to play a villain in the Marvel Comics franchise, was a jolly good fellow, very “musical” as he enlivened the interview by singing excerpts from the songs he has composed including one for Quentin Tarantino who directed him in Django Unchained in which he did a scene showing him hanging upside-down fully naked. He credited that movie for getting him into the Spider-Man movie.

“That nude scene was necessary for Django,” explained Foxx. “But I don’t think that nudity always means that, you know, it is an art. In the story, that’s the real thing they would do to slaves in those times — snip their nuts, you know, and let them bleed…Because of that scene, when I walk in the mall, women would look at me in a certain way, hahahaha!”

It’s always a joy to interview Hugh Jackman, my fourth time during the X-Men: Days of Future Past also in Singapore a month later, the first three having been for Australia (with fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman), Les Miserables with Anne Hathaway and Wolverine. Jackman is down-to-earth, easy to like and devoid of star complex. And he calls you by your nickname, flattering! It’s a no-no to have a photo with the stars during a junket but when you ask him, Jackman readily says yes, why not, and even volunteers to click your celfone camera for you, thank you!

He had just undergone a minor surgery and had a plaster on his nose due to basal-cell carcinoma, said to be the most treatable form of cancer.

“It’s sun damage mainly from since I was a kid,” he volunteered the information. “I wasn’t much into wearing sunscreen back then. I’m an Australian with English parents and English sort of blood, so I was very much at risk, something that we didn’t know back then. The important thing is to wear sunscreen when you go under the sun. That I do now. I undergo regular skin check-up.”

What a pleasant surprise it was meeting Peter Dinklage who plays military scientist Dr. Bolivar Trask in the movie. Of course, Dinklage, who stands shorter than my 5’3”, is well-loved for his role as Tyrion Lannister in the HBO hit series Game of Thrones. He’s a small man, all right, but with a stature so huge that people look up to him.

Asked by a New York Times reporter if he saw himself as a spokesperson for the rights of “little people,” Dinklage replied, “I don’t know what I would say. Everyone’s different. Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I’m seemingly okay with it, I can’t preach how to be okay with it. I don’t think I still am okay with it. There are days when I’m not.”

Philippine connection was the main topic when I sat with Dave Bautista (a.k.a. The Animal during his glory days as a wrestler). No wonder, he’s half-Filipino, half-Greek who has the Philippine map tattooed on his forearm, proud of his Filipino heritage. The encounter was for Guardians of the Galaxy, again in Singapore, in which he plays Drax The Destroyer.

In person, believe it or not, Bautista is painfully shy, a sentimental guy with a soft spot who is not ashamed to cry.

“That side of me comes from my being a Filipino,” admitted Bautista who was in Manila in 2006 for a wrestling exhibition. “My father is Filipino and my mother is Greek. But I was born and raised in America so I’m very Americanized. I’m trying my best to speak Tagalog and I do know a few words like ‘Mabuhay’ and ‘Mahal kita.’”

Guardians leading lady Zoe Saldana (who was in the James Cameron blockbuster Avatar in 2006 when The STAR first interviewed her) said she’d rather not do a role if it was simply “decorative.”

“It’s important for me to leave a trail of substantial things that young women can learn from and be inspired by it,” she insisted. “My niece is 11 years old and I don’t want her to grow up just wanting to be a princess; I want her to grow up and want to be a king because at the end of the day, why should it not be a possibility for her?”

Trivia: During the interview, Saldana offered your Funfarer a piece from the bowlful of Kisses she was eating. No, thank you. “Would it be okay if I’d rather have a selfie with you?” I said. Saldana smiled, took my celfone and clicked the camera. Good shot.

Philippine connection was likewise discussed during the interview with Luke Evans for Dracula Untold in September in London.

“Oh, so you’re from the Philippines,” smiled Evans (who was here in May 2013 for the Fast & Furious promo with Vin Diesel). “It’s a great place; I have lots of friends there, actors whom I met during my stint in Miss Saigon,” mentioning the likes of Ima Castro, Jake Macapagal and Miriam Marasigan. “Before the Fast & Furious junket, I went on a vacation in the Philippines 10 years earlier and I loved it! But I didn’t get enough time to see more of the country so I hope to go back someday.”

Conversations’ final close brush with Hollywood in 2014 was with Jennifer Lawrence and Donald Sutherland during the junket for Mockingjay Part 1 (the third installment of the hit Hunger Games trilogy), also in London.

Unfortunately, Lawrence (first interviewed by The STAR in December 2013 for Hunger Games: Catching Fire in L.A.) was indisposed and didn’t stay long enough to be asked how she felt about her nude pictures that went viral.

“It’s not a scandal,” Lawrence was quoted in an exclusive Vanity Fair interview, “it’s a sex crime. Those who watch (the pictures) are perpetuating the crime.”

 Lawrence’s co-star Sutherland, who plays President Snow (the authoritarian leader of Panem) in the series, commented on abuses on social media, “Oh boy, I wouldn’t even know where to go because pretty much, media has to make money and if you have to make money, the message is corrupted.”

Sutherland has his own Philippine connection.

“When I visited the Philippines sometime in 1971 when Marcos was the president,” he recalled, “I read a book called Philippine Society and Revolution. I forgot who the author was but I remember how fascinating the book was.”

Here’s to more Hollywood encounters in 2015.

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