Let (the) Sunshine in

Yes, she was hospitalized. But Sunshine Dizon vehemently denies it was because of a broken heart.

“Why should I get depressed over a man?” she asks, quashing rumors that the breakup with Jojo Manlongat sent her straight to the hospital. The real reason, she says, is a severe case of migraine.

Turns out Sunshine doesn’t have the slightest reason to feel depressed. She has assignments galore to keep her busy.

Starting tonight, she headlines four episodes of GMA 7’s Obra. Directing Sunshine in the weekly episodes titled Rosa Negra, Ang Alamat ni Mira Bella, Butch and Sapi are not one, but four megmen. They are Jun Lana (Rosa Negra), Maryo J. delos Reyes (Ang Alamat ni Mira Bella), Joel Lamangan (Butch) and Topel Lee (Sapi).

Sunshine is the type who sticks her neck out in offbeat roles: A lesbian in Sabel, an ugly outcast in Bakekang. But her Obra roles are still the stuff even someone like Sunshine would like to play over and over.

Sunshine plays a negrita searching for kindness in a world of cynicism in Rosa Negra. She’s a has-been actress imprisoned by vices and pining for lost love in Ang Alamat ni Mira Bella. Sunshine portrays a lesbian who experiences the joy and misery of being a surrogate mom in Butch. Finally, in Sapi, Obra’s Halloween special, Sunshine plays someone possessed by an evil spirit and sinister past.

The work keeps on coming, even after Obra. Sunshine is a newscaster in All About Eve. Then she’s a doctor who bumps into Robin Padilla in the horror film Sundo.

Yes, when it rains, it pours.

“I’m happy because I have so many things to be thankful for. Good people surround me,” Sunshine gushes.

So Sunshine is not worried one bit if her US-based dad says she is unlucky in love. Love, she relates, is the least of her concerns for the moment.

“When the right man comes, he will come,” she muses. Money, she goes on, is not important. What’s more important is how much he loves her, how much he’s bent on making her happy.

But would her protective mom, Dorothy Laforteza, allow her precious daughter to leave the nest and go her own way with the man of her dreams someday? Sunshine can’t say for now. What she’s sure of is that the guy must get her mom’s blessing in their relationship first. No blessing, no go. And that, as people who know Sunshine will say, is not easy.

Sunshine is not worried, though. In fact, she bravely says she doesn’t mind ending up an old maid if Mr. Right doesn’t show up.

“Why, I deserve the best man there is!” she proclaims.

 Sunshine is not just sitting there, doing nothing to improve herself, physically, that is. She just had her second liposuction, this time on her arms and legs (the first, done three years ago, was on her entire body). The decision came when Sunshine’s mom noticed that hours in the gym were only making her daughter’s arms bigger. It’s hardly flattering for an actress like her.

Dear mom advised her daughter to stop those gym work-outs. Sunshine obeyed, and went instead to Dr. Manny Calayan’s clinic for another liposuction procedure.

Now, she maintains those trim arms and legs through water therapy and a healthy diet. But since Sunshine has a sensitive stomach, she can only take distilled water, which she always carries around in a tumbler.

By keeping herself in tiptop shape, Sunshine Dizon is telling the world, “Look at me. Do I look depressed? Far from it. I’m happy, excited and raring to play the most offbeat role I can lay my hands on.”

You better take her word for it.