‘JoshLia’ on reunion movie: It’s like returning to a familiar space

Time plays an important role here,” said Julia Barretto as a way to explain her decision to reunite with former boyfriend Joshua Garcia after more than four years since they were last seen together in a movie project.

“It’s the perfect time and the perfect material,” said Julia of their latest big-screen team up, Petersen Vargas’ romantic drama “Un/Happy for You.”

The two dated from 2017 to 2019. In 2021, they surprised supporters of their on-screen tandem, known as “JoshLia,” by appearing in the music video of Moira dela Torre’s “Paubaya.” Since then, people have been clamoring for them to come up with a reunion project.

“After ‘Paubaya,’ we received an offer to do a project with a theme that’s similar to this one, but it wasn’t the ‘perfect time’ yet,” Joshua told reporters in an interview on Wednesday afternoon.

“Everything that had happened was still fresh to us at the time. The time we spent away before reuniting [as JoshLia] really helped. We now have a lot of new things to show each other in terms of acting.”

All is well between the former couple, Joshua said, that they didn’t need to ask permission from their respective real-life partners before working on “Un/Happy for You.” Julia is currently dating actor Gerald Anderson, while Joshua is with Filipino-French golfer Emilienne Vigier.

“Even before my partner and I met personally, she already knew about my work as an actor. When I told her about this project, she said she was excited. After that, we didn’t talk about the topic anymore,” Joshua said.

Meanwhile, Julia said that since she and Gerald are both from the industry, “we both know how this works,” she pointed out. “He has done something very similar to this. He is very understanding and supportive of everything I do.”

Both claimed there was no awkwardness during their first shooting day, but Joshua said they had to feel their way around the set.

“In the beginning, nangangapa kami. We’re familiar with how the other person works, especially because we’ve done a lot of projects together, but we first had to take a moment to figure out how to work on bringing back the rapport. Everything that’s familiar to us came back naturally, and we didn’t have to work on them too much,” he explained.

‘Familiar space’

When asked what she thought broke the ice between them, Julia said: “It’s like we just came home to our friendship. Coming into the project, I don’t think I ever felt any discomfort. Yes, it’s been years, but it’s like returning to a familiar space. Josh is somebody who has gotten to know me in the past. Even if we’ve already grown in the years that we’ve been apart, I feel that he still knows me, how I work. He probably still knows what makes me happy, sad or frustrated, so I found comfort in knowing that I’m entering a familiar space with him.

“What was more exciting for me was the idea of catching up with him and hearing how he has been, what has changed and what has remained in him. In those conversations, that’s when we started to kind of break that ice.”

The two eventually did some catching up, said Joshua. “This happened while resting in between setups. We talked, we reminisced—sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with the other cast members, and then with Direk (Petersen),” said Joshua.

‘New JoshLia’

“It’s been fun,” Julia pointed out. “I also think the JoshLia of before helped shape the new JoshLia.” Joshua added: “The younger JoshLia was part of our story. It’s like we needed to go through those experiences to get to the JoshLia of the present.”

Asked to talk more about the project, Julia said their characters, Zy and Juancho, are also ex-lovers who cross paths years later.

“They didn’t realize that when they separated, they had no closure. So we’ll see in the film how they both navigate the things that were not acknowledged in the past. They try to ask themselves, ‘Do you think this is a better time to get back together? Or was it the right decision that we separated the first time?’ It’s really a roller-coaster ride for the two,” Julia pointed out.

She described Zy as someone complex. “She is so restrained. She bottles up emotions because she thinks it is what’s best for everyone. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone further. She’s brave. She is a go-getter. She genuinely cares for Juancho, but she always tries to find balance in everything. It’s very tiring to play Zy. Whether or not she’s the unhappy one, we’ll just have to watch.”

Joshua said he was able to relate to Juancho’s pain. “I couldn’t relate to how he handled the pain, though. That’s just Juancho, and not me. I guess both Julia and I were able to quickly relate to our characters. They only needed little tweaking in terms of beats because, obviously, we’re not the characters we’re portraying,” he said.

Both said they liked the script (by Kookai Labayen, Crystal San Miguel and Jen Chuaunsu) instantly, but really fell in love with the third draft. “It kept evolving. That’s OK because that meant our creative team really gave the material all the love and care.”

Joshua said they made sure to also give their input on the story. “We collaborated with the writers and our director, but there were only very few revisions. Even though we already had a solid script, we would add our own thing to it. It’s hard not to ad-lib. We tend to deliver our lines the way we naturally do them.”

“Un/Happy for You,” a coproduction of Star Cinema and Viva Films, will be screened in cinemas nationwide starting Aug. 14.