Hot actor Paolo Gumabao revealed that he's single and happy like he's never been, but at the same time expressed his openness to have a relationship, even with a foreigner, when the time comes.
"Love is love. Love does not know race, age, gender. Love is love," Paolo said in an interview after the mediacon of his upcoming movie "Spring In Prague" where he plays the leading man of top Czech actress Sara Sandeva.
However, Paolo disclosed that he is not looking forward to falling in love anytime soon.
"I can proudly say I am single, but I am enjoying my single life, I'm not looking for a girlfriend. I am happy that I am able to fully focus on work now and I don't have to text anybody at the end of each shooting day 'Baby, am done. I'm going home now'," he said in the vernacular.
"For the first time in a long time, I'm not thinking of any relationship. Career first," noted Paolo, who won a Best Actor Award for his 2021 movie "Lockdown" at the Filipino International Cine Festival.
The 24-year-old Paolo only had good words for his beautiful Czech screen partner Sara, who is a year older than him in real life. In "Spring in Prague," he plays the role of Alfonso, a resort owner, who falls in love with Maruska Ruzicka, a foreign tourist visiting the Philippines for the first time.
"I never worked with a female actress in the Philippines who would go through the script with me, only Sara. I appreciate her so much because this is the kind of actor that I am. When you give me the script, I dissect it, I have notes on my script. When Sara arrived, she was ready also. She had notes and she had highlights on her script. That's when I realized that the movie will proceed smoothly and we will get along well," he pointed out.
The producer of the movie is Borracho Productions of lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, which also produced Paolo's recent movie "Mamasapano," shown during the 2022 Metro Manila Film Festival.
Atty. Topacio revealed that he was having dinner with officials of the Czech government in Prague when they told him an interesting story about "the romances between Czech women and Filipino men" in the European country.
That's when Topacio was inspired to produce a romantic comedy "with historical allusions and social commentary on communism and democracy." Director Lester Dimaranan immediately teamed up with Eric Ramos to conceptualize the script of "Spring in Prague" the way they did with "Mamasapano."
"Back in the '80s, the Philippines was one of the Top 10 film-producing countries in the world with more than 250 movies per year and 1.3 million people watching per day. Now it's all gone. We want to start again. (Borracho Productions) would like to make our humble contribution for the growth of the local movie industry," Topacio said.
Paolo and Sara are currently shooting in the Philippines, in places like Puerto Galera and Tagaytay. On the first week of February, they will take a flight to Prague to do the European leg of the film.
We asked Paolo if he will he do sexy, steamy scenes with Sara like he did with local streaming movies.
"Syempre andun pa rin ang pagiging Paolo Gumabao. Hindi na kagaya ng dati pero mainit-init pa rin," noted the actor, who was last seen on TV playing the villain Noah Vallesteros in the 2022 Kapamilya adaptation of Darna.
(I will still be the Paolo Gumabao that you know. Probably less daring but still hot.)