Face to face with Thai star Mario Maurer
FUNFARE By Ricardo F. Lo The Philippine Star Updated August 09, 2011 12:00 AM
Nope, I didn’t have any idea who Mario Maurer was when Joyce Ramirez, head of PR Asia Inc., invited me to Bangkok Wednesday last week to do an exclusive interview with him. Joyce’s company had just finalized a deal for Penshoppe to have Mario as its latest endorser, right on the heels of Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick who came here a few weeks ago to do a pictorial as Penshoppe model.
Jerry Donato, this paper’s Entertainment Section sub-editor, got excited when he learned about the Mario Maurer interview. It turned out that Jerry is a big fan of Mario who won the hearts of Filipino fans, a good number of them from the gay community, because of his poignant performance in the Thai movie The Love Of Siam which is a love story between two high school boys reminiscent, according to the movie’s followers, of Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education. Mario and fellow Thai actor Witwisit Hirunwongkul play the boys in love. Mario won Best Actor in the 2008 Cinemanila.
Aside from Joyce, with me on the trip were Penshoppe’s Alex Mendoza and make-up artist Jake Galvez (Tony Galvez’s nephew). On Thursday,
ABS-CBN/Star Cinema executive Enrico Santos, accompanied by Mico del Rosario (one of the twin company’s PR guys), joined us purposely to negotiate with Mario’s manager for a movie that would have maybe Erich Gonzales as leading lady.
“We’re just exploring the possibility,” Enrico told Funfare.
With your columnist during the interview in Bangkok
This short piece actually serves as an intro to the full-length interview which will come out in Conversations with Ricky Lo on Sunday, Aug. 14, which answers everything that fans of Mario’s have been wanting to ask him but never have the chance to. Watch out for it. Meanwhile, the video of the interview may be viewed starting tomorrow, Wednesday, on philstar.com.
LINK: http://www.philstar.com/funfare/article.aspx?articleid=714741&publicationsubcategoryid=70