Anne Curtis on what superstar status represents to her now, and her sense of Home.
One of the best known and most followed celebrities in the Philippines, actor Anne Curtis’s superstar status is about to go global thanks to her role in Erik Matti’s Manila-set action thriller, BuyBust.
Anne Curtis wears Maison Valentino throughout.
‘Filipinos love to smile! We’re happy even when times are tough.’
Anne Curtis has a smile that is open. Wide and generous. Genuine. She’s made her nearing-three-decades-long career on it – whether it’s smiling in car or beauty commercials as a child model or in hyper-expressive comic turns in TV soap operas. After Curtis’s breakout turn as a Neverending Story-esque young ingenue in the film Magic Kingdom: Ang Alamat ng Damortis, Filipino audiences have grown up watching her smile on screen in myriad roles, most prominently in her improv turn as a TV host on the daytime talent contest It’s Showtime. Curtis is about to be the first Filipino actress immortalised as a wax figure in Madame Tussauds in Hong Kong. It might be the one instance where she’s not smiling, as her waxwork strikes a stony red-carpet expression alongside other Hollywood celebrities in the attraction’s ‘glamour zone’.
Curtis’s smile is infectious and instantaneous and conveys a humility that doesn’t quite stack up when you consider she’s the single most followed celebrity on Instagram in the Philippines: a true multi-hypehenate, with a resumé that spans acting, presenting, singing and clothes designing, she has 20 million followers. Her constant presence in the Filipino entertainment spotlight came from a willingness to graft, as well as a determination not to be typecast. ‘Things come and go so fast these days. But in our era, we started off as, like, the little sisters of whatever lead actress was big at the time. We really worked our way up. In the beginning, I was always cast as the “Balikbayan”, the overseas Filipino.’ (Curtis’s dad is Australian and her mother is Filipino). ‘When I first got my first dramatic, offbeat character role, that’s when directors and producers started approaching me with darker characters. I’ve made the conscious decision not to stay in the safe zone.’
To that end, Curtis also bears the curious hallmark of an Asian multi-hyphenate celebrity by having the ability to sell out concert stadiums as well as command box-office numbers. Despite Curtis’s constant insistence that she is not a singer, somehow a few days after being shot for Perfect she is in Los Angeles playing a sold-out concert to her legions of fans, who have come to be endeared by her sheer enthusiasm for singing. ‘I talk about not being a great singer but I love to sing, and I think people can relate to that.’
Her innate affability and ability to relate to an audience is best seen in her longstanding gig as host on It’s Showtime. Part Britain’s Got Talent, part wacky variety show, part stand-up and improv comedy, Curtis has had to hone her skills as a natural entertainer, bantering with her co-host, the fabulous Vice Ganda. Even without understanding a word of Tagalog, a language that Curtis herself had to master in a few years in her teens to kickstart her career, it’s hard not to be impressed by watching her trade jokes, punchlines and jibes with her hosts, completely off the cuff. ‘You’re on between 12 and 3pm, Monday to Saturday. It’s like a daily workshop, doing improv like this, and in this way the audience have been able to grow closer to me. We have live viewers where we get instant feedback and it's really so fulfilling when you're able to make that kind of difference in people's lives. And that's why I love doing Showtime.’ This constant exposure is also the reason why Curtis is vehemently against retouching when doing photoshoots. “They see me every day on TV. I don’t want my eyes made bigger or my skin retouched because of my freckles.’
To be constantly on in the way Curtis has been for so long would probably take its toll on anyone. But in Curtis’s case, if it does it barely shows, as she is ever willing to connect with her fans. Even though she can expect to be mobbed in most parts of Philippines and anywhere else in the world where her people are (as she points out, ‘Filipinos work everywhere, travel everywhere, are everywhere’), public perception and scrutiny is rife and Curtis is not immune to scandal, like the time a decade ago when Curtis slapped another prominent Filipino actor in a club and famously said, ‘I can buy you, your friends and this club.’ Such stuff is now meme-making material and Curtis has of course emerged scathed, but ultimately victorious. Public perception has also changed since Curtis married the YouTube food and travel personality Erwan Heussaff (‘He’s my quiet little bubble away from the craziness of the industry’) and had daughter Dahlia three years ago. ‘I was scared about what sort of roles I’d be able to take, because in the Philippines you’re perceived very differently after you become a mother. It was really important to still dress like myself, and feel young at heart.’ Curtis knew she had cemented her new maternal status in the public consciousness when she became an ambassador for Jollibee, the famed family-friendly Filipino fast food chain where, incidentally, she was first spotted by a model scout when she was 12.
Curtis is currently kickstarting a comeback that will see her flexing her acting chops once again. In 2018 she starred as a kick-ass police officer in action thriller BuyBust, working with acclaimed director Erik Matti, who is now developing the film into a fleshed-out limited series that will air on Netflix. It’s at this point where Curtis becomes truly animated about the precipice she stands on, when it comes to both her career and the dissemination of Filipino culture. Netflix is of course a huge platform where new audiences might discover both Curtis and Filipino cinema at large. ‘The director has really high hopes for showing the beauty of the Philippines by shooting in stunning locations, as well as highlighting the martial arts skill of kali.’
Curtis herself is on a personal mission to bring to Filipino culture the international appreciation currently enjoyed by Thai film and celebrity and, before that, the K-wave of K-pop and K-drama. ‘I want to show that we have a really strong family-based culture that people can relate to. I’d love to see that our country isn’t just about poverty or Third World or slums. It was so funny, the way that, when I was doing press for [2018 romantic drama] Sid & Aya on the international film circuit, in New York they’d say things like, “I didn’t know Philippines had such a beautiful CBD [central business district].”’ That in itself is a gross generalisation from a Western audience that perhaps still largely view Southeast Asian countries as far-flung holiday destinations or through the lens of depressed poverty, as opposed to the economic and cultural powerhouses they are well on the way to becoming.
Perhaps Curtis’s smile belies a steely and serious determination as she considers the aspirations and hopes of her audience. ‘There’s a saying in Filipino: pwede na. It means “It’s enough”, as in “it’s OK to be content”. And so, yes, Filipinos are very content, even through hardship. But It’s Showtime reminds people not to be complacent. You can always lift yourself up.’ And so the rags-to-riches narrative, omnipresent in Filipino soap operas, is still very much pervasive. ‘I’m very grateful to have had the longevity that I’ve enjoyed. People come and go. But there’ll always be a role you haven’t portrayed or a new challenge you haven’t met.’
And with that open, earnest smile, Curtis has the last laugh. ‘The dream continues.’
