Head In The Clouds

Alden Richards is not only a full-fledged dreamer, but someone who's taking everything head on: here, there, and everywhere.

- Audrey Carpio

Alden Richards has reached singularity. He’s all over the news, not as AlDub or half of a portmanteau bearing the chains of an onstage/offstage relationship. Not even as Pambansang Bae, subsumed into a relationship, but simply as himself, Alden Richards, the 27-year-old Seoul Drama Award-winning, leading man of the highest grossing Filipino film ever.

The uniquely Filipino phenomenon called the love team has a long history in the local industry. Mary Walter and Gregorio Fernandez were the first romantic film pairing, back in the ’20s and ’30s when films were still silent. A century later, studios still adhere to this formula, a testament to the enduring romantic hopelessness of the Filipino audience.

Enter “Hello, Love, Goodbye,” a movie that took considerable risks with its lead cast but has since raked in more than P880 million worldwide with its timely portrayal of a young OFW couple living in Hong Kong. Kathryn Bernardo was hot off the heels of the highest grossing Filipino film “The Hows of Us,” her seventh with real-life partner Daniel Padilla. Alden, meanwhile, had just finished a post-apocalyptic TV movie for GMA called “The Journey,” and has been indelibly linked to Maine Mendoza since their “Eat Bulaga” pairing catapulted them to insane levels of stardom in 2015. Pre-AlDub, Alden was not yet a household name but he already had the makings of a serious actor, after winning an award for his turn as Jose Rizal in the TV series “Ilustrado.”

Actors each from different networks and different loveteams, with their legion of intensely loyal fans, what’s not to fear?