The Iron Heart cast and crew impress Italian stuntmen
Expect more fierce fighting scenes now that ABS-CBN’s action-drama series, The Iron Heart, has entered a new season. This time, the cast members, directors and crew jetted to Italy to film the next chapter of Richard Gutierrez’s Apollo’s mission to stop the spread of the virus.
The STAR asked during a press conference about the unforgettable memories they had while taping in the European country and they all had nice things to say about their adventures there.
Setting foot in Italian cities for the first time, directors Lester Pimentel Ong and Wang Yan Bin (or Ace as they called him), and Jake Cuenca admired the beauty of Rome and the small town of Tivoli while shooting in those places.
In the words of direk Lester, he was in “awe of the grandeur of Rome and Tivoli.” Tivoli is an hour and a half from Rome where they executed the gunfight scenes for the series.
“We can shoot in Rome but we cannot carry out the guns and shoot on the streets. It was forbidden to take out your guns and fire it off. That’s why the gunfight scenes, action scenes, we shot them outside of Rome,” he explained.
One of the most unforgettable moments they had was collaborating with Italian stuntmen with Hollywood experiences who were “amazed” with Filipinos’ way of filming.
Direk Lester recalled, “One thing, they have a different workflow as compared to us. But they are very hardworking. One thing that made us feel flattered was their comment that they were very impressed with how we shot (the scenes), how we choreographed (the stunts) and how our actors performed with them.”
“Being international stunt people, they were impressed at how great our actors are na mabilis…Our process is faster as compared to theirs. Normally, they would rehearse for several days before they would go into a shoot,” the action director and award-winning martial artist continued.
“(Our way) is the Hong Kong, Chinese style of action. We go to the set early, we rehearse and then we shoot. We take several takes until we are happy.”
The filmmaker also noted how “very safety conscious” the Italian stuntmen were. “If they were tired, they would rest. Sa atin ratsada ng ratsada because that’s how we work. Because of the budgetary constraints and then other than budget, our skills set naman kasi kaya naman din. Our actors are like athletes. They are very strong physically so what flatters us (is) they always admire us for our actors’ skills. Ang gagaling daw.”
Direk Lester shared the reasons why The Iron Heart team chose Italy as a filming location. First, they took inspiration from the mafia gangster series of Italy; second, it was his dream to shoot there; and third, the STAR Creatives production outfit was already familiar with the place because they also stayed there for the 2016 teleserye Dolce Amore.
For his part, Chinese-speaking director Ace shared how “happy” they were joining forces with Italian stuntmen. He said (as translated by direk Lester), “So when we went to Italy, we used our Asian way of work process. And at first, Italians don’t want to accept the way we work because we work very fast, we work very efficiently (and) we work nonstop. The working culture in Italy is more chill.
“But from being unaccepting, we were able to convince them to work and collaborate with us, working on it the Asian way. So they were happy with what we have achieved together. We’re happy with them collaborating with us and when we saw the results, we were all happy,” he added.
Direk Ace had past experiences working with European and American actors and film crew members in shoots that took place in Asian countries, not in Europe or the US.
Jake, on other hand, was “amazed” by the splendor of Italy and was “grateful” to have the chance to go there for work. “It was my first travel (experience) after the pandemic,” he stated.
It was a “dream come true” for the actor to do action scenes in Italy. As he described it, “It was a lot of work but certainly it was fun.”
Jake and his co-stars, Richard, Albert Martinez, Ian Veneracion and others, had formed a strong bond after leaving Rome.
“I can say that with this show… I think The Iron Heart will always have a special place in my heart because we really became a family. We’ve experienced so much together in the past nine months (in Cebu) and we’re about to experience even more things together.”
Jake is looking forward to further work with his co-actors and directors. He also expressed his gratitude to the ABS-CBN production unit STAR Creatives.
As a fan of the action genre and as a trained martial artist, lead actor Richard also got to finally fulfill his dream of filming action sequences in Europe. He offered his appreciation to ABS-CBN, ABS-CBN chief operating officer for Broadcast Cory Vidanes, STAR Creatives and the team behind the series.
Richard was “very happy and proud” when he watched the outcome of The Iron Heart sequences.
“It wasn’t an easy shooting experience,” he admitted.
Nonetheless, he praised the charm of Italian cities. “It’s a very unique place (Tivoli). I was surprised that the people were very chill kahit maghapon kaming nagbabarilan at nagtatakbuhan dun (even though we were filming gunfights and running there the whole day).
“The onlookers were relaxed. Walang nagrereklamo sa ingay namin, sa gulo namin (Nobody complained about the noise and the mess we made). They were very chill and very accepting,” he added.
Richard echoed what direk Lester said earlier of how Italians got fascinated by their working style.
“They were really surprised at how we worked non-stop and choreographed the fight scenes on the day. Then we’d execute it on the (same) day just like how we’d do it here,” he said and cited the “great team” that they have.
“With all the action sequences that we did in Rome, at the end of it, the Italians were happy. They were amazed with our team’s skill set and they admired the Filipinos,” declared Richard.
He was proud to say that “we were able to represent the Filipino action genre in Italy well.”
“Despite all the struggles of ABS-CBN, we still had the opportunity to shoot in Europe and you know, we are very thankful and humbled by this experience,” he went on.
After spending months in Cebu for the first season, The Iron Heart cast and production team headed for Iloilo City to film the second season.
(The Iron Heart airs at 8:45 p.m. on A2Z, Kapamilya Channel, TV5, Kapamilya Online Live on Facebook and YouTube, Jeepney TV, and TFC IPTV.)
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