Claudine: The healing process is over — almost!

She’s a big girl now. While Claudine Barretto is not exactly your bra-burning feminist, she has opted to do away with the ubiquitous feminine underwear and go au naturelle beneath an all-white blouse in her first daring role: Star Cinema’s Kailangan Kita. No, Claudine is not following in the footsteps of today’s boldies.

But she sure is a far cry from the wide-eyed 13-year-old Aga Muhlach first set his eyes on in front of the camera for the teleseries Kailan Mo Ako Mamahalin. Neither does the Claudine of today approximate Aga’s quite grown-up but still pubescent co-star of five years in the now-defunct Okidokidoc.

It’s as if everyone blinked, and voila! Out came Claudine, a grown-up young woman with smoldering appeal and experience combined.

The transformation was not lost on Rory Quintos, her director in Kailangan Kita. Notes the director of the highly-acclaimed Anak, where Claudine starred as Vilma Santos’ rebellious daughter. "The Rico (Yan incident) matured her. She grew richer emotionally after that big loss in her life. It gave her depth as an actress."

Direk Rory should know. She saw Claudine grow up on screen right before her eyes. It was the perceptive director who handled Claudine seven years ago in the light romance Mangarap Ka. Then of course, came the ground-breaking Anak.

Looking at her steamy love scene with Aga, you can hardly imagine that she was once the coy girl with the bushy eyebrows her late boyfriend Rico Yan romanced in many a TV soap and movie.

Oh yes, how fast time flies!

Claudine, all of 23, proclaims to the world, "I want to grow as an actress."

By "growing," she means tackling more daring roles, not exactly sexy, but unprecedented for a former teenybopper like her. Roles where she not only kisses her leading man passionately in the lips, but those that segue into torrid love scenes to boot.

Claudine insists, "I am prepared mentally and emotionally." And so, too, she likes to believe, are her fans, who have seen her only in sedate telenovelas so far.

"They are very supportive (of her new role). In fact, they’re excited," Claudine reports. Of course, she had butterflies in her stomach, especially when she had pictorials with Aga.

She used to see him in the house since he was a family friend. Why, he was even her big crush. And now, here he was, actually acting as her leading man!

Claudine couldn’t believe her ears at first when Star Cinema called her about Kailangan Kita.

"I couldn’t believe that I will be paired with Aga until the first shooting day came around," she admits.

And, when it came, Claudine didn’t have to rub her eyes anymore. One of her biggest dreams had come true, at last.

"I was only 16 when I knew I wanted to have a project with Aga," she recalls.

It was Aga, she looks back further, who helped pull her through when detractors sowed intrigues against her on the heels of Rico’s death last March.

"I had someone to talk to, someone who was really behind me. I don’t know where I’ll be today if Aga was not there," Claudine looks at her leading man, who is seated beside her.

Aga, who saw her through her darkest hour, can only exclaim, "Claudine is such a strong woman!"

Strong enough to return to the set and continue shooting the movie after Rico died. Direk Rory asked her crew to pack up for a month in deference to Claudine’s feelings. But she herself set her grief aside, and chose to get on with the show.

It’s a measure of Claudine’s maturity when she says, "I realized that the minute I cave in, many people (e.g. the small industry workers like the utility men and makeup artists) will be affected. So I had to summon all my inner strength."

It helped a lot that her leading man happens to be a good friend.

"I wouldn’t have done all those scenes if it weren’t for Aga," she admits.

Neither would her late boyfriend agreed. Claudine surmises that Aga and Rico are not close enough for the latter to agree to those passionate scenes.

Claudine plays a barrio lass who falls in love with an NPA. When she breaks her father’s heart because of this, Claudine decides to make amends by serving the family in their big, old house. Enter Aga as a celebrity chef from New York who comes home to ask for the hand of Claudine’s elder sister in marriage.

Thanks to the provincial setting, Kailangan Kita is a virtual walking advertisement of Bicolandia, and Philippine scenery as well. Not one to compromise her craft, Direk Rory had to coax Mt. Mayon out of its slumber and wait until she could capture it in all its majesty. And how about that verdant ricefield which took all of eight hours to reach because only a carabao can pass through the winding path leading to it?

More than the picture-perfect scenes though is the underlying theme of rediscovering one’s roots. Aga, he of the flambé orientation and cosmopolitan outlook, learns to fall in love with his homeland once more.

Everything falls into place.

If only the same can be said of Claudine’s healing process.

"To completely heal, I must forgive (is she referring to Dominic Ochoa and Bobby Yan?). I don’t like bearing a grudge against anyone," Claudine muses.

But she’s slowly getting there, thanks partly to Raymart Santiago. It is he, she says, who makes her feel special even when her sense of self-worth has hit rock-bottom.

"I had no pride, no ego. I had to swallow everything when Rico died," Claudine goes on.

If Raymart is the guy who will make her open her heart again, and help her see the light at the end of the tunnel, so be it.

Claudine Barretto, after all, has every right to pick up the pieces and enjoy her youth all over again.