“As a teenager, I really loved what I was doing. “Show business is like a lion’s den,” she sums up. Her life very quickly was taken over by back-to-back shoots, extended call times and constant media attention.
Her mother-who would eventually became her manager-supported her wishes and allowed her to secretly audition for the role that launched her as Evangelista, her grandmother’s name, which the network felt would make a better screen name. “However, I wasn’t really allowed to be an actress, I come from a very traditional and strict family,” she says, before we assume that her career choice was a natural progression. Her father is a patron of the arts, and both parents were very much in the fashion circuit- “so I grew up around people who always dressed very well, loved fashion, culture and the arts.” “We would have these performances in the restaurants, what we call the ‘singing cooks and waiters’, and I would also perform with them when I was very young,” she recalls with a smile. In fact, she has been surrounded by all things show business since the day she was born: her grandparents were owners of a production company called Everlasting Pictures and her family owns the Barrio Fiesta chain of restaurants in the Philippines, which has since its early days has been a hotspot for celebrities, local and foreign. Born Love Marie Ongpauco, Evangelista was barely 13 when she first faced the camera as an actress. To put things in perspective, let’s go back a few years. Which aspect of her life was evoking any kind of anxiety? It was each and every one of the above, as she found out the hard way. One might wonder why someone who is is ever so poised, perfectly groomed, in the trendiest clothes, has nine million followers on Instagram, and is married to one of the most eligible men in the Philippines would feel any of the emotions she felt that day. All those emotions then started to manifest physically as numbness in her limbs and a painful condition called burning tongue syndrome, which she later realised was the result of pent-up anxiety. Then, suddenly, I felt sad, anxious, and very depressed,” shares Evangelista. “I was at fashion week, feeling at the top of the world.
We are talking about the time that the “perfect” life that Evangelista projected to her fans and followers, the media, and her family, turned on her in the most unexpected of ways. She has obviously taken it all in her stride, but the Evangelista from three years ago would not have been able to adapt so easily. Yeah, it’s a little crazy, but we are all adapting to the change.” “So, you are basically working almost every day.
#INCUBUS BAND ANXIETY SERIES#
She is excited that the network came in on her pitch for a series on her current hometown, called I left my heart in Sorsogon.Īt a locked-in taping, the crew first had to quarantine for 10 days and then shoot for three weeks at a stretch. “I just came out of a locked-in taping for a telenovela, but I managed to leave for a bit to celebrate my husband’s birthday,” she chirps. The media darling and first lady of the province of Sorsogon-her husband Francis Escudero is the Governor-has mastered the art of juggling it all. We are barely five minutes into the interview, and I can already see that things like the right articulation, lighting and location are all second nature to her. She quickly veers away from a corridor view with a “Oh, too much glare”, and settles back at where she started. Or so I think-but Evangelista is in fact looking for a better angle for the interview. Then, picking up her laptop between her manicured hands, she gives me a virtual tour of her home. She apologises quickly for the ambient noise around her- “they are preparing dinner,” she says, explaining the flurry of activity in the background. It’s 5pm on a Wednesday in Singapore and Heart Evangelista is speaking to me via a Zoom Call from her home in the Philippines.