MANILA, Philippines - Premiering tomorrow after It’s Showtime!, the Jeffrey Jeturian tearjerker takes up the challenge to fuse romance with psychological thriller.
What makes drama compelling is when it seeps into the inner recesses of a character’s mind, brings out his foibles and blurs his sense of sanity.
This seems to be the narrative path The Better Half, the latest Kapamilya Gold afternoon block soap, is treading as it redefines the Pinoy drama by hopefully veering away from presenting flat-archetype roles and formulaic storylines.
Premiering tomorrow after It’s Showtime!, the Jeffrey Jeturian tearjerker replaces the 18-month-old Doble Kara and takes up the challenge to fuse romance with psychological thriller. Given its crossover nature, The Better Half is, in a way, genre-busting.
Walking through the tale of love and obsession are Camille, Marco, Bianca and Rafael, played by Shaina Magdayao, Carlo Aquino, Denise Laurel and JC de Vera, respectively.
“Perhaps, to reunite with someone who, I know, doesn’t love me anymore,” replied Carlo when asked about the craziest thing he has done or could do for love. “Kapag mahal ko talaga, ipaglalaban ko kahit nararamdaman ko na hindi niya ako mahal.”
JC, on the other hand, had a similar story of giving love another chance.
“Even if I knew she was fooling me, I tried to understand her, like everything she had done,” he recalled. “Na kahit galing ako sa malayong lugar, pipilitin ko pa ring makapunta sa kanya.” This turned into obsession that took a toll on him. “I followed her wherever she would go because I had lost trust in her, self-destruction na yung nangyari, nasisira na ako sa mga ginagawa ko. I believe that once you’re that in love, you no longer think about what you’re doing. Sometimes when people tell you’re wrong, you don’t listen.” Then, the truth usually falls on deaf ears and people tend to get blinded by love.
As for Shaina, the craziest thing she could do in the name of love is “everything that I think I wouldn’t and I couldn’t do… maybe that’s why they say you’re blinded.” Lovers even surprise themselves of the extra mile they can go to make their better half happy.
“I had work and at the same time my loved one had an event,” shared Denise. “I had to be at both. I had little savings, I got a helicopter, nag-perform ako sa work, tapos nag-helicopter ako papunta sa event ng loved one ko.”
Like everyone else, Shaina and Denise are aware that sometimes love is not enough to make a relationship work — and that some good things never last as the song goes.
“You can’t force someone to love you,” said Denise. “You can’t control other people, what you can only control is yourself. If you show (people) that you love them so much and then they don’t reciprocate that, anong magagawa mo.”
“I really believe that you should always keep that respect not only for your other half, but also for yourself,” shared Shaina. “Para respetuhin ka ng ibang tao, dapat respetuhin mo ang sarili mo.”
All this is perhaps a preview of each of the characters’ unique tale of finding love and fighting for a lost love.
“I accepted the role because it’s different from the ones I’ve done,” said Carlo of Marco, husband of Shaina’s Camille. “I’m excited to where the story of my character will go. He has just recovered from amnesia; his memories will soon come back.”
“(My character) lost her husband, nabaliw na siya,” shared Shaina. “Nag-let go na siya sa sanity at sa life. She couldn’t handle the grief. Then, someone like Rafael comes along.”
JC is breathing life into Camille’s knight in shining armor.
“He is very understanding, fun loving,” he said. “He is almost perfect because he has positive outlook in life… What’s interesting about him is he will love her regardless of her social standing. Kasi ang tinitignan niya yung personality ng tao. Kaya niyang intindihin ang lahat ng bagay sa babae.”
With that, plus the new drama genre, one can’t help but look forward to The Better Half which, many will agree, has a feel of telefilm.
“It’s really exciting because I just feel this is a good time for TV,” said Denise, “it’s a good time for Filipino entertainment in general. This, I hope, is gonna be one of the trendsetters.”
“The whole show, to me, has rich layers,” added Shaina. “Kumbaga ang dami mong pwedeng puntahang anggulo. It can tackle a lot of problems. It’s not just a drama, it’s not just about family. It’s also about couples who have separated.” She suggested that viewers have to watch The Better Half to understand her character’s confession and the soon-to-be-iconic line: “Father, forgive me. I’m having an affair with my husband.” Based on the trailer, JC, Denise and Carlo have their own quotable lines and scene highlights.
How is it like working on the set of a genre-busting soap?
“I think the actor needs to know the vision of the director and the whole team,” replied Carlo. “Yun yung malinaw na pinarating sa amin nila Ms. Ginny (Monteagudo-Ocampo) and direk Jeffrey kung ano yung gusto nilang makita. Of course, you can share your inputs, too, like where do you see your character is going or what will happen to him?”
“To be very honest, it’s very difficult,” said Shaina. “Una pa lang, mabigat na ang journey ng character ko. Just in the first scene, she has lost her sanity, she’s like taong grasa. It’s tough to do because I haven’t experienced it, nasaktan ako pero yung nalugmok na ganun na kinalimutan mo na ang pagkatao mo, I’ve never done that. We were given a few weeks to do workshops together to just really internalize and understand the roles.”
The actors “get easily acclimatized,” so to speak, to the acting environment because of the supportive, encouraging production and creative team behind The Better Half.
“We’re fortunate to have talented writers. Kasi ang ganda nung storya, alam mo na walang tapon na linya,” Shaina said.
“We have to adjust even now that we’ve already taped scenes good for few weeks, we’re still in the adjustment period,” added JC. “We have to ask our director for some tips, comments and suggestions… we have the freedom on how to attack our roles, the director helps us and we can pitch in our ideas. Nalalaro namin. Ganun kami ka tutok sa script. We can visualize what we could do for the next few weeks of acting. Nakikita ko na ang gusto kong gawin. We would tape (scenes) chronologically. I have seen what’s going on in the story; it helps a lot.”
What JC can assure everyone is that the story is “full of emotions,” and people will say that “ganyan ang nararamdaman ng tao in real life… I think it’s a classic soap opera with a twist.”
That means the actors portray real people although their characters are fictional.
“When you do the skeleton of a character (or character study/analysis), what you see sometimes is just the outer layer,” he said. “What we have done so far is very colorful, malalim na malalim na, na hindi fiction yung tingin mo sa character, totoong tao na ito talaga.”
This sounds interesting. You better catch the pilot episode of The Better Half, a fresh take on Pinoy drama.