The Truth About Bea and John Lloyd

StarStudio Magazine, June 2004
by: Marvin Aguila

Off cam, they run out of things to talk about. They don’t even have each other’s cell number. But, together on screen, they just sizzle. What’s keeping John Lloyd and Bea from making it real? Arnel Ramos supplies the answers.

John Lloyd Cruz breezes through the door of L.A. Sizzling Café and you can tell he’s a miser with smiles. Even Bea Alonzo, when they first met in 2002, thought he was suplado. Once he has warmed up though and he does smile, it comes across as, well, sincere.

He is Bea’s exact opposite. She shows up, half an hour later, greeting and waving to everyone warmly. She talks to us the same as the last time we saw each other two to three months ago. Walang katapusang kamustuhan. And she calls us mare, mind you!

First thing we notice they hardly talk to each other. “Halos araw-araw na ba naman kaming magkasama naubusan na kami ng pag-uusapan.,” Bea quips. Second thing, they’re both in black. And before highly imaginative minds entertain the idea that they did it on purpose, it may come as a disappointment to learn that there is no way they could have briefed each other on the color they would be wearing for the shoot.

How could they when, in the first place, they don’t even have each other’s cell number? “I never asked,” Lloydy reveals but he does not elaborate. “Alam mo ba, lahat na yata sa set may number ng isa’t isa, kami lang yatang dalawa’yung exception.” Bea shares, sounding amused.

On screen, it may be difficult to picture one of them without the other. But once the cameras stop grinding, Lloydy and Bea seems to treat each other like they’re only a few notches above being total strangers. But to the more perceptive , this parang-hindi-kilala ang -isa’t -isa stance could, for all we know, be their own sly way of misleading us as to how they really feel about each other.

Towards the tail-end of the shoot, small gestures of (we’d like to think) suppressed affection manifest. The usually pensive Lloydy (”Don’t mind me. I’m feeling a bit down tonight’) loosens up. He makes faces for the camera, displaying a more playful and yes, more endearing side of him. At one point, he brushes of Bea’s locks off her face using his bare fingers. “Kilig ko naman?” Bea’s cousin Arlene turns to us. We were quietly swooning, that’s why.

Lloydy does not remember what Bea was wearing when he first saw hr, a 15-year-old showbiz wannabe discovered from some obscure small town beauty pageant whom Talent Center was grooming to be his new screen partner. ” My memory is not too good” But rejoice, Lloydy at least recalls the first question he threw at Bea —”Ilang taon ka na ?” Bea smiles at the remembrance, ” Oo nga,” she confirms. Bea was a year shy of turning 16 then and yet she was to potray the role of twenty something law student Katrina Argos to Lloydy ’s cocky young lawyer Yuri Orvida. The project? Their breakthrough teleserye, Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay.

The then experimental loveteam has since gone places. With the top-rating It Might Be You and the forthcoming big-screen team-up Because of You, theirs is unquestionably the loveteam of the moment, leading the pack at a safe distance. Even with Ciara Sotto out of the way (Lloydy and Ciara broke up last year) , the crucial question remains the same. Why can’t it be them? ” Kanta ‘yun, ah!” Lloydy laughs.

Could there be a grain of truth to the rumors flying about that Lloydy is trying to win back another ex of his Kaye Abad? So untrue, Lloydy declares. “We’re still friends. Pero not friends as in we share problems. I guess I can’t be friends with any of my ex’s, “Lloydy says but makes the last statement back.

Lest he be misunderstood, maybe Lloydy really meant was that it really is hard, especially for former lovers, to hope that things will be the same again. After all, it holds true even for those whose private lives don’t get watched by a nosy, sometimes overhearing public every single hour of the day.

Ciara Sotto he’d rather not discuss. He begs off and again, we sense Lloydy’s trademark discomtiture over these extremely personal matters. Instead ask him about his family and the craft of acting and you’re assured of a frontrow conversation.

If we are to buy the idea that Lloydy is currently unattached, where does the problem stem from then? Could it be because of Cholo Baretto whom Bea openly admits is the most patient and loyal of her textmates? “I entertain him. Malapit siya sa family ko. Pero wala pa ring assurance. I tell him that he’s free to court other girls. And if he finds one that he likes more, I’ll be happy for him.”

So where do all these leave us? ” They’re not close; they don’t bother to know each other’s cell numbers. Does … mean that the possibility of a real-life romance between Lloydy and Bea is nil?

Perhaps forcing the idea isn’t helping forward the story to the fans’ desired end. For now, maybe it’s enough that Lloydy thinks Bea is beautiful, “Maganda siya, di ba?” Lloydy asks as he gazes towards Bea’s direction. “Beautiful nga sabi nila”. And that Bea thinks it was gentlemanly of Lloydy not to have taken advantage of the two scenes where they had to lock lips in Kay Tagal. “First kiss ko ‘yun sa TV at sa totoong buhay. John didn’t make it traumatic for me.”

As Lloydy himself pleads, “Hayaan n’yo na lang kami ni Bea. Kung magkakagustuhan kami, mangyayari na lang ‘yun.” Okay then, we’re willing to wait.