starstruck

our film doesn't have big hollywood stars. just one, and he's not even big enough to be a household name. not in these parts, no.

but MM is the biggest that we have, and he has been in two Quent1n t@rant1no films, and among our film's entire cast he is the only one who has a trailer of his own. his name sounded familiar, but i didn't know him from Adam.

and because i didn't know him, i wasn't fazed. i would approach him to tell him the scenes that were scheduled for the day. one day i was shooting in the Other Unit when i was called to the Unit One set. they said that MM was looking for "the scriptgirl", so i was called. when i arrived, Boss Direk told MM in front of everybody, "here's saffron, we missed her! very pretty, huh?", which sounded bugaw-like to me. hello!?

it was a joke, but the co-workers wouldn't stop harping about it. i felt iffy, and i knew it meant nothing, dahil malisyoso lang talaga ang mga katrabaho ko. pero biglang nailang ako. euw. i couldn't look at MM anymore. parang nabahiran.

but work, as usual, even if i tried hard not to show him that i was uncomfortable talking with him. he would insert out-of-the-blue questions like "how old are you?", "are you married?", "did you go to college?" during our scene by scene rundowns, and the discomfort started transforming into a muted kind of flattery with each day. urgh. i was becoming a fan. a schoolgirl. he was 50 years old, and he came to manila with his wife. i didn't like feeling that way, but i liked it when he would be nice to me.

just like a gullible little girl. haha.

one time he signed a personalized autograph on his script, and asked his P.A. to give it to me. that was nice, but i don't remember asking for an autographed script. haha! i told his PA, pakisabi thank you, pero gusto ko magpapicture sa kanya. the next day the PA told me that MM said that he would have his picture taken with me for one kiss a picture. haha. that's taking the whole startstruck thing a bit too far.

i had my picture taken with him, nonetheless. when i approached him for it he asked me to sit on his lap. i was aghast. in front of all those people, i was cornered. it meant nothing and i didn't want to make a big deal out of it, so i did. ang resulta, para kaming mag-ama sa picture. haha.

afterwards, MM's PA said to me (in front of MM), winking, "that's two pictures, what about the payment?"

"shut up!" i said jokingly, and went away. haha.

on his last day on our set, i got to chat up with him a bit, with the producers. he looked like a bad guy, but he was actually soft-spoken. and he could talk for hours, do his anecdotal monologues, inviting minimal interruptions, about the people he loved and missed, his family, his kids. that was a peek, and it was interesting for me. i knew that i would probably miss this old guy.

now i know i'm going to have to watch r3s3rvoir d0gs again. and pay close attention to that memorable scene where MM chopped off a guy's ear while dancing to happy music. :-)