Since it has been a long time since the last time that we saw her on television, fans of Bela Padilla were surely thrilled to see her on FYE Channel’s “Metro Chats”, wherein she talked about working on a Korean film last year.
Last year, she was given the chance to star with Korean actor Kim Gun-woo in a Filipino-Korean romance-comedy film “Ultimate Oppa” which was filmed both in South Korea and in the Philippines. Fortunately, the whole team behind the film was able to finish filming in March – right before Metro Manila was put in lockdown. In fact, Korean entertainment news site Soompi published an article regarding her role as a Filipino girl who admires Korean stars.
In this interview, the 29-year-old versatile actress recalled some of her unforgettable experiences working with Kim Gun-woo – a rising Korean actor who appeared in the 2020 romance series “Record of Youth” – on his first-ever movie project.
According to Bela, most of them in the set actually call the 28-year old actor a “baby boy” because despite his manly physical attributes, he’s actually shy deep inside and quiet most of the time. But when she got to know him, he is really nice and it was just always good vibes whenever she was with him since he could be so playful like a little boy.
But what made him even cuter was his innocence at some things. For instance, there were things that Gun-woo didn’t know until Bela and some from the team told him about it, such as sending message texts to people abroad without having any charge via internet connection. But Gun-woo also taught her several things about South Korea that she didn’t know.
Moreover, Gun-woo had been so thoughtful to her as he would always check on Bela, especially when the temperature in Korea got brutally cold. He would share the hot packs he put on his back to her and made sure that she had something to eat since she’s not fond of spicy food and their meals on the set were usually spicy.
Aside from Gun-woo, she also had the chance to work alongside another Korean oppa Cho Tae-kwan, who’s also part of the hit K-Drama “Start-Up.” According to her, he’s actually the complete opposite of Gun-woo, but “in the best way possible”, and she observed how more relaxed he was. She also discovered a few similarities with him, such as studying in London for high school and college, so they had more things to talk about.
When asked if she learned any Korean phrase when they were filming, Bela shared that she actually had to learn the Korean version of “Pag-ibig Na Kaya” by Rachelle Ann Go and Christian Bautista, which was initially used in the classic K-drama “Princess Hours” that was broadcast in the Philippines many years ago.
Apart from her co-actors, she also got closer to the whole team including their director who she fondly called “appa” or “father” in Korean. She was also able to join their “coffee club” and realized that although they know only a little about each other’s culture and life, this didn’t hinder them to impart and share a lot of things about themselves.
Metro Chats is a one-on-one interview with former Metro cover girls and other trending celebrities and personalities. Catch them on FYE Channel's official Kumu account (@FYEChannel) every Thursday at 7PM, hosted by Metro Editor-in-Chief Geolette Esguerra. You may also binge-watch past episodes on TFC.tv.