Bela Padilla

"All the long nights of pep talks but also long nights of self-doubt; the long nights of crying yourself to sleep because you didn't get that audition—it will all pay off."

"At the end of the day, I stayed so true to myself. And the person that I am, intrinsically, I guess, is also interesting pala to other people—I just had to wait it out."

"All of us have that within us. You know, you don't need to become another person to be interesting. The people or the world is just not ready yet. But there will come a time when the world is ready to meet you, and then you realize, everything has paid off."

"“We all know that scent, for instance, is linked to memory and brings us back to a different time.""

"This freedom of fixing my own schedule; of saying, 'No, I'm not going to work today, I'm going to go to the park. I'm not going to write today; I'll spend the day in a museum.' I have that big liberty now and I am relishing every minute of it."

"Now I feel like I'm finally settling, and it's funny because the things I do here are not out of the ordinary."

"It's really just the most mundane things that I enjoy, really: going to the grocery, walking around parks. It's so…it's super simple but I am living, I'm loving and living this slow life, really."

"I wanted to explore grief, and how people who have centered their whole lives on one person, you know, wake up one day with (their) whole plan for the future, completely destroyed."

"The sad part for me is I know so many Filipino actors who go above and beyond; like, we work harder than probably any other race."

"We're literally required to be on set for more than 24 hours—I went through all of that. And yet, we are underrepresented on the global stage, and that is because we don't have a sense of ourselves. We don't have a culture that represents us. We're not proud of the culture that we have. And we don't represent well in our films because every budget, I feel, for now at least, is just something to tide you over until the next one. But it shouldn't be viewed that way.""

"I feel like that is taken so lightly nowadays. Something that people take for granted. They're just happy to attach their name to something or they don't care if the project came out well or if the project actually is nice. So maybe it's time. We've all gone through a global pandemic. Maybe it's time now to really take things seriously again and to really think about what we put out there."

"I would love now to see what I can do— not just in my comfort zone."

"Obviously, everyone has big dreams, but I don't want to think about it, yet. Maybe in 10 years, I would have achieved something already, toward that direction. Or maybe not. Maybe I have a family and I just settled down and I'm done with all of it. We don't know."

"“Simple pero engrande (Simple yet grand). I saw so many things that I wouldn’t see here. I watched plays, full-on productions. I got to experience the efficiency of a first world country.""