For a reluctant actress, she’s happy to be getting praises for her credible performance as Sarah Geronimo’s rival over John Lloyd Cruz’ attention in the hit “It Takes a Man and a Woman”. It’ll be recalled that she was initially reluctant to join showbiz and just wanted to be a model, then GMA-7 got her and she first went into hosting for Manny Pacquiao’s game show. Eventually, she tried acting in a soap, “Faithfully”, then now she’s into movies. Her role in “Lihis” is definitely much more demanding than the one in “It Takes”.
“I play a school teacher who’s wondering why in the photo taken when I was baptized, punit yung part na nandun yung ninong ko, si Jake Cuenca. My mom as a young woman is played by Lovi Poe and my dad is Joem Bascon. So I do some research and learn that my dad and my ninong pala are the original lovers as rebels in the NPA. But then my mom comes between them at naagaw ang dad ko from my ninong. In my research, I also uncover the atrocities in a small barrio na parang nabura sa mapa. I connect the past and the present at akong storyteller ng movie.”
She’s definitely a late bloomer as an actress as she’s now 25. “Okay lang. My mom kasi insisted that I finish college first. I have no regrets about that.”
On the set, her mom takes acting so seriously and tends to give too much advice to Isabel. She knows her mom means well but, at one point, “Lihis” supervising producer Dennis Evangelista told us Isabel seems to have had enough of it and told her mom: “Mommy, you’re not the director of the movie, it’s Direk Joel Lamangan”.
