Young actress Angelica Panganiban—in the hint of darkness and intensity beneath that voluptuous beauty.That's dinner for the curvaceous Angelica Panganiban, who, at 20, has already gotten the covers of two international men's magazines sizzling, starred in her own launching movie, and had her share of Internet notoriety, thanks to some illegally posted photos.
Angelica does have currency nowadays as the Lolita of the moment, exuding an aura in her pictorials that would certainly merit Nabokov's approval.
But reality and fantasy collide inside the suite, with the cosmetics clattering on the dresser, makeup artist working his magic, and Angelica staring down the rest of her meal: a green salad, a pesto-like concoction called “Green Goddess Dressing,” banana pudding, and nuts, all packed in individual microwavable containers courtesy of The Sexy Chef diet catering service.
“Kaya nga eh. Pinapadalhan ako ng menu kung ano yung kakainin ko the next day, binabasa ko na agad para i-prepare ang sarili ko. Kaya minsan bago kumain, umiinit na ulo ko, eh,” Angelica jokes, trying to suppress a laugh.
The audience can't hear Angelica, of course, as her voice dissolves in the night air. It's almost 9 in the evening. We're about to go downstairs for a shoot in Le Bar, the hotel's new bistro cum library across the lobby.
And we could all tell she' genuinely pressured to look right for the part, to avoid projecting the air of bikini-clad vixen and instead, be properly glammed up and worthy of Rajo's creations. Still, whatever concerns she has at the moment are quickly set aside, as she assumes her giggly, smiling mien, walking with the excited gait of a teenager off for a night out with her friends.
“She's just this big kid. With a woman's body.” The though insinuates itself rather rudely in my head as we file into the elevator.
As it turns out, the shoot is a breeze. Whatever apprehensions Angelica may have had about the shoot are not evident. She goes through the motions like a seasoned professional. The shoot has this very light and airy feel to it. There's ever room for kidding around, with Angelica cracking her share of jokes at her own expense.
She says she's been living on her own for the past nine months, and gosh—how expensive it is to live alone! The rent for the condo! The gas for the car! The electricity! The leaves make a crunching sound with her every bite.
So why insist on living alone then? “Kasi wala akong alam sa buhay!” she replies. “I grew up with everything being done for me. There was always someone around to help me with the small stuff. Small stuff that I can't live without—like folding my clothes properly. The first time I went to a shoot without a PA, I got so frustrated! I couldn't fold my own clothes!” Ah, the hazards of being a child star, as she has been since she was 6.
So off she went to live alone, to be independent; to learn to fend for herself in a world where complete strangers can steal photographs of you in your underwear, and spread their un-retouched starkness.
How did that happen? Both Angelica and one of her handlers fill me in on what happened. Those rather unflattering photos of Angelica were filched by someone from the ad agency tasked to produce the sexy calendar for a brand of liquor. “Whoever says that those photos on the Net show how I really looked during the pictorial is misleading people. Those photos were test shots. They were taken a month before the actual pictorial took place. It was the fitting stage. That's why you will notice that some of the outfits are loose and simply did not look good at me.
“After a month, I had lost the weight and was fit and trim enough for the actual pictorial. So it's unfair to say that my photos from the actual shoot were heavily altered or Photoshopped. If ever any retouching was done, that was the artist's and the ad agency's call,” she explains.
By the time the Maxim shoot came along, Angelica says she was ready for them. “I can categorically say that I loved my best for those pictorials. Very minimal retouching was done.”
Is that Internet experience the reason why she's on the South Beach Diet? “Not really. Believe it or not, I don't eat a lot. I can get by with a slice of pizza as a full meal. The problem is, my body is so reactive. I eat a slice or two of pizza, and the calories start to show. Whatever I put in shows up on the outside, but when I don't eat, I also slim down very quickly. You won't believe how flat my tummy is after a night's sleep.
“I'm on a diet right now because I'm shooting a new movie, yes. But I also decided on it for health reasons. You see, I don't cook for myself. I can't prepare healthy meals, especially now that I live alone. I used to eat fastfood all the time. It came to a point when I wasn't feeling good anymore. My health was affected.
“On my own, I would have a hard time choosing healthy meals. Now, the careering service prepares my meals and makes sure I'm eating healthy food throughout the day.”
“The first one happened just a few months after I got my license. I got sideswiped by this huge truck. I stopped my car, looked at the damage, and got really angry. I think I did that because that's the reaction I see in the movies. You know—get out of the car and get really pissed.
“I got back inside my car and chased after the truck, raring to get into a fight with the driver. Again, I was doing that because that's what I saw in the movies. I didn't know a thing about handling those situations.
One accident really left her shaken, though. “The second accident I had was last year. February 15, would you believe? Right after Valentine's Day. That time around, another truck tried to overtake me. I panicked because it looked like it was going to hit me. So I turned the wheel sharply to the left to avoid the truck, and I hit this other car moving alongside me. I thought I was going to die. The person in the other car was somebody's driver. Then the police came. They wanted to take me to the police station. I was, like, why? Am I being arrested? I was really scared. I thought I was going to go to jail. It's a good thing the other driver was a very nice man. Even though I crashed into his car, he was the one trying to calm me down. So, hello, manong, wherever you are, marami pong salamat!
“At the police station, I had to pose holding this piece of paper with numbers on it and they took my picture. I even posed beside the damaged part of the other car.
“I was taking to the car's owner on my cellphone and apologizing, ‘Sorry po talaga! Akala ko po talaga mamamatay na ako!' She assured me that all the stuff we were doing was just routine, so that the insurance companies could take care of everything else,” Angelica recalls.
As she opens the last food container, filled with cooked, peeled peanuts, she also recalls the latest accident she had while driving. “Would you imagine it happened while I was trying to park my car at my usual parking space? I was in the condo's parking area. I'd parked my car in that space dozens of times, so it was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, I didn't know that the guard ha put a chain across the space, with one end tied to this shelf. I didn't see the chain at all. So I drive into the parking space and hit the chain. The chain pulls down the shelf, which crashed down the roof of my car.” By the end of her story, Angelica is lying on her stomach, munching on the last of the peanuts.
Before the interview, one of Angelica's handlers tells me about Star Magic head honcho Johnny Manahan's psychological assessment of Angelica. “Mr. M (as Manahan is fondly referred to) believes in saying, ‘There's no beauty without strangeness.' Angelica has this ‘strangeness' about her. Her acting has edginess, and her eyes say a lot. You can see an intensity in them that's wild and unpredictable, like she's up to no good. Kinda psycho, but in a positive way.”
That wild side isn't evident during the interview, though. Angelica actually comes off as being quite regular, as she talks to a friend on her mobile phone. Her friends are obviously a major part of her life. Angelica says she would rather stay at home and invite friends over instead of going out to party at night. “We watch DVDs. Eat. Then we talk. We can talk the entire day, usually about movies—movies that we watched, movies that are currently being shot. Showbiz. Pinoy Big Brother. I'm very happy being with my friends.”
Proof that she enjoys her friends is her habit of splurging on them. Or more accurately, it's a habit that she's trying to kick. “When I wasn't on my own yet, I would give friends whatever they wanted. I wouldn't think of how expensive a particular gift was, I just bought it. Now, I don't do that. I watch my expenses now that I'm living and earning for myself. Nowadays, I just give them 100 pesos, for pamasahe!” she says, laughing.
She recalls her old spending habits with a kind of fascination. “Before, I thought nothing of spending P5,000 a day. I wouldn't even remember where the money went. One time, while shopping, I blew P27,000 at this swanky boutique.
“Nowadays, I never do that. I've learned to spend on basic necessities first. I only spend on expensive clothes when absolutely necessary for a specific occasion,” she says.
“Why do these blind items keep coming out, which invariably paint you as a bitch?” I ask. Angelica has a quick answer, without showing the slightest offense at the question. “That's because I try to be the real me all the time. I won't pretend to be nice. I speak my mind and am true to what I feel. Everybody in showbiz is plastic. Not me. If you do something I don't like, you'll know about it. From me. I won't pretend every thing's alright then talk behind your back.
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