Ashtine Olviga expands her range… and palate?
If by some odd chance you find yourself with the opportunity to treat Ashtine Olviga to a meal out—or maybe you’re just thinking of sending some food to her shooting location—just a heads up: Eggs are a no-go, she rarely eats veggies, and for the longest time, she couldn’t even bring herself to try meat.
“When I was a child, I mostly ate just rice and soup. That went on until high school,” the actress tells Lifestyle Inquirer in her recent launch as Botejyu’s newest endorser.
Eyes eat first
She’s far from being “adventurous or curious” when it comes to food, that’s for sure. Her idea of a food trip is chips. Yes, “unhealthy,” she knows. And a lot of it, she surmises, comes down to the fact that she’s a very visual person. Her eyes eat before her mouth does.
“Sometimes, if I see a dish and don’t like how it looks, I get discouraged from trying it because I instantly assume it tastes bad,” she admits.
But that’s something the 26-year-old actress has been trying to change—mostly because she wants to train and expand her palate, and partly because she’s afraid she might get sick, she jokes. “Now, I’ve realized I really need to eat vegetables,” Olviga says, laughing.
In fact, she has even come up with her own salad that she makes at home, though it’s mostly made with “safe greens” like lettuce. But hey, baby steps, right? “It has salmon and my own special sauce with garlic and butter,” she shares. “It’s quite good!”
Luckily, her fans more or less know what her favorite foods are by now. On set with her screen partner, Andres Muhlach, they’re usually treated to catered food for the production crew, courtesy of the fans—lechon, ice cream, pancit, and lumpiang shanghai.
“Now I also love karaage and katsudon,” she shares. “You can’t be too picky forever. You will never know what’s good until you try.”
Paying it forward
But if there’s one thing she doesn’t need to be too picky about, it’s acting projects. After “Minamahal,” her debut film with Muhlach, Olviga marked yet another milestone in her career by landing a role in the period crime drama “Manila’s Finest”—an entry to this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival.
Details are still quite sparse at the moment, but what’s known so far is that—in her first outing at the prestigious annual film event—she will take on the role of a woman named Agnes Magtibay. “She fights for what’s right,” she says in a news snippet on TV5. And yes, she plays the daughter of Piolo Pascual’s police officer character.
“It still hasn’t sunk in!” says Olviga, who grew up loving Pascual’s 2014 box-office hit “Starting Over Again.” “Suddenly, script reading made me nervous, even though it’s something I do all the time.”
Set in 1969, the story follows Manila policemen striving to uphold their integrity and loyalty as the government tightens its grip on the country. By the looks of it, this is no lighthearted fare. And safe to say, the genre is uncharted waters for her—something new to sink her teeth into. And this time, it’s not food.
“I need to study the character well, so that I won’t get overwhelmed by instructions or adjustments on the set,” she says.
This year is really shaping up to be a memorable one for Olviga, marked by exciting firsts and various personal and career achievements. Still, she never lets it go to her head.
“I see these blessings as a reason to pay it forward,” she stresses. “Everything I have now is from God, and whatever He gives, He can also take away.”
