SA ginanap na press conference para sa pelikulang Maledicto, masayang ipinahayag ni Jasmine Curtis-Smith na siya’y overwhelmed by the feedback she received for her portrayal sa Sahaya.

“Actually, ako din nabitin. Gusto ko rin tumagal ako doon. Pero okay lang kasi that in itself, that was an experience for me to feel that, and also to see what it’s like on a grander scale. Kasi iba din naman ang TV when you reach the mass audience. So, I’m overwhelmed, I don’t know what to say.”

Jasmine admits that she was initially nervous as to how audiences would accept her portrayal of a Badjao because of her Australian lineage.

“Sa ‘Sahaya’, I was very afraid na baka sabihin ng tao, matanda na agad ‘yung role ko kasi mother role na, o kaya ‘di naman ako bagay doon, ‘di ako mukhang Badjao, ang daming possibilities. I think nandoon ako sa technical side of things of how people will view our role and how I portray it, rather than kung magaling or hindi, or mukha bang totoong umiiyak siya.

“Naku, baka sabihin nila, hindi ako totoong Badjao or hindi ako taga-Siargao or hindi ako kung taga saan mang bansa, lalo na kasi, let’s face the facts, I’m half white.

“Hindi mo mabubura ‘yun na meron din ang gusto nila, representation. Kailangan ding maging hypersensitive with that. So, nandoon din ‘yung pressure on the sensitivity of appropriation.”

Jasmine was surprised when her elder sister, Anne Curtis, expressed support for her Sahaya stint.

Last March, a few days after Sahaya’s pilot episode, Anne retweeted Jasmine’s post about one of her dramatic scenes in the show.

Anne posted on Twitter back then: “Hi, GMA More roles like this for my amazing actress of a Sestra. Love you! Napakahusay mo talaga!!!!”

Sestra is the Slovak term for “sister”.

Nagbigay naman ng kanyang reaction si Jasmine para dito.

Aniya, “nagulat ako because hindi ko siya sinabihan or wala kaming family group chat na, ‘Huy, manood kayo.’ Wala naman kaming ganu’n. She really saw it out of the blue on my Twitter and natuwa si Ate.

“Si Ate kasi, pagka naman humingi ka ng help to promote something, she’ll really post it for you and she doesn’t really care kung taga-kabila siya or may kasabayan siyang project because of sisterhood.

“When she goes out of her way to retweet that or say something else, ibig sabihin, talagang gusto niya. Bihira lang namang may lumabas na tweet diyan na hindi K-pop or K-drama!

“Ibig sabihin, natuwa si ate and I’m thankful kasi galing na sa kanya ‘yun, someone with more experience.”

Bago ang Sahaya, Jasmine’s first teleserye with GMA-7 was the prime-time series Pamilya Roces, which was shown from October to December 2018.

Ten weeks lang ang itinagal nito sa ere, shorter than the regular season run of 13 weeks because it wasn’t able to perform well in terms of TV ratings.

Tanggap naman niya ito at sinabing hindi siya nanghihinayang sa pagkawala ng una niyang soap.

“No, not at all. I think, nanghinayang. More of sana, it lasted long kasi we really enjoyed the story and we really enjoyed the company of each other. But all of us naman are so aware of how the business plays out din.

“So, it’s not doing well on air, we wouldn’t want our business heads or our network heads to be sacrificing so much, ‘tapos hindi maganda din ‘yung feedback.

Ako kasi, I’ve gotten into a point na I try to look at it din in a business perspective na rin, e. These are people who are paying me also and kung nasasayangan na because hindi receptive yung audience, we have to look for another avenue. And that takes science and formulas to create a study that they know, so, malaki naman yung trust na binigay ko with them in terms of that.”

-Ador V. Saluta