Women

THE COMPLEX ART OF BEING BELA PADILLA (IN THREE PARTS)

BY ALLAN P. HERNANDEZ
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAIRA LUNA
Sep.20.22

If you’ve seen it, think about Meet Me in St. Gallen all over again. Remember how a good part of that movie is made up entirely of conversations. Consider how unnerving it must be to carry out that kind of talk without ever losing the plot. And to be vulnerable and honest like that for hours. Your well will surely run dry of hugot. Good thing it was only a movie—because real talk with Bela is much more fun and engaging. You can actually talk about nothing and it will mean something. We wish you can have the same chance we had, because everything there is to love about Bela starts with the talking…

Part I

Scare Me And It’s Over

No matter how you imagine you could be spending forever with her, there is really only one thing you can ever do to end it with Bela Padilla with utter finality: Make her watch horror movies.

Say, you’re in a theater watching a screamer, this is what will happen. No, this actually happened:

“I remember watching Mama (2013)—these two kids who were left somewhere and they’re eating cherries and they don’t know how to talk and they scramble everywhere. It was in Greenhills and it was a week after a shooting incident happened in the US because of a Batman film. I was watching Mama and my senses were super-heightened. And then the movie stopped playing and the whole cinema went black. I ran out screaming because I thought somebody was going to shoot. People were probably looking at me thinking, ‘what’s happening to her?’ Finally I went back inside and my then-boyfriend was like, ‘you’re just going to leave me here?!

“So yeah, I can’t watch horror movies. I won’t be able to sleep,” Bela says.

That leaves a huge gaping hole in what would otherwise have been exciting movie marathons that could lead to things even more exciting. It means she knows nothing, or doesn’t care, about classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead, or Friday the 13th. On the other hand, if you’re a guy named Jason or Freddy, she wouldn’t even get in on the joke.

“I watched The Amityville Horror when I was a kid. I was covering my eyes and the last shot of the movie was—so hindi ko napanood yung buong movie, naririnig ko lang—the last shot of the movie was the kid falls, naipit ‘yung ulo niya dun sa floor. So the kid and I stared at each other for, like, three seconds because I was peeking at the floor—talagang hindi pa niya ako pinagbigyan to walk away from it with no memory,” Bela remembers. “That kid stuck with me for, like, two years and every time I look at the clock now, even on my phone and it says 3:14 I think Amityville.” [3:15 a.m. is when all the horror happens in the Amityville house because a mass murder happened there at that exact time].

It may even put a damper on Bela’s career, which of late has been punctuated by hugot movies that began with 100 Tula Para Kay Stella (2017) and achieved full blossom in Meet Me In St. Gallen (2018). Not that we feel shortchanged, just that Bela as the new scream queen might be an interesting progression.

“It’s dumb, but I’m never gonna do a horror film,” Bela puts it bluntly. “I really don't have good impressions or memories of horror films. It's just not something I enjoy. Horror films are like hot sauce—anghang na anghang na anghang ka pero hindi mo na malasahan yung meat, hindi mo na malasahan yung kanin, alam mo yun?”

Convincing her to go all blood and gore was difficult. Believe us, we tried. Futile conversation went like this:

AO: What a waste. Imagine the possibilities of a Bela Padilla horror film.

Bela: Never happening! Please do not pitch to anybody. Please do not tell Bos Vic about this. [Bos Vic Del Rosario, Viva Films top honcho. Bela is signed with Viva]

AO: Let’s say it starts out as a rom-com.

Bela: Pero puro dugo and someone will die, I cannot! Like I've watched Nora Aunor’s Dementia. I thought it was a psycho-thriller, like, about dementia. Kumakain ako ng popcorn tapos biglang may dumaan na multo tanghaling tapat, hindi nila nilagay sa gabi 'yung multo, nabato ko 'yung popcorn, I walked out so I never knew what happened. I don't know how it ended.

AO: Maybe something like Sixth Sense [“I see dead people”, is what it is].

Bela: I don’t like Sixth Sense. (laughs)

AO: Shutter Island? [Detective investigates mental asylum. Turns out he’s mental]

Bela: I like Shutter Island but I made somebody promise na walang dadaan na multo. Kapag may multo, friendship over. The movie made me think, so that’s nice.

AO: We know, maybe an art film where you don’t know we’re filming a horror film, so we get real reactions from you. Like Blair Witch or something.

Bela: Pero dahil sinabi niyo sa'kin alam ko na, thank you.

AO: Let’s make it happen.

Bela: Do not make it happen, friendship over tayo.

It won’t happen. Ever.