Ana Capri bares more than her body

Talk about what’s invisible to the eye and Ana Capri has lots of them. Unlike on screen where all she need do is bare flesh to get noticed, the real Ana Capri just has to open her mouth to prove she has as much to show between her ears.

Her eyes light up as she talks, not so much about who’s going out with who or other kinds of trivia, but about the dollar-peso rate, her penchant for drawing nudes etc.

The bombshell moviegoers know is actually given to investing, studying market trends, reading, the arts. She converted the deutsche marks she earned while making a movie in Germany, not in pesos, but in dollars, for her hard-earned money to grow.

She is hard on herself. Ana says she shouldn’t make mistakes in life and burden other people That was why she declared her independence from her parents (her mom is a former grade school teacher) as a teenager and lives on her own right now.

"If I can avoid giving my mom a problem, I will," she reasons out.

Ana compares showbiz to losing one’s virginity. "If I didn’t learn anything from the experience, everything would be a waste," she says, skirting the issue of whether she is still the same untainted lass who made her film debut at 16 in Virgin People.

This hands-on way of dealing with anything is very Ana Capri. She has turned her relationships (her first boyfriend, with whom she went steady for four years, is no more, and a non-showbiz guy has taken his place), says she, into rich raw materials for her acting assignments. Like a vestige from the past that you turn into something even more useful, Ana has made things serve a vital purpose. Nothing has escaped her eye, much more laid to waste.

From spending six years in showbiz thus far, she learned how unstable the field she entered is.

"You’re lucky if you last five years," she says. This explains why the dusky Ana keeps her feet firmly planted on the ground, a Best Actress award from Cine Manila for Pila Balde notwithstanding.

Ana is the type who holds her head high, never mind if that bold actress tag stuck to her like some sort of scarlet letter. What’s important, she reasons out, is that she chooses roles that "make sense."

In Live Show for instance, she shows what human degradation is as Rosita, (show live sex performer) the reluctant torrera who gives birth to a son at 15, only to give him up for adoption. That haunted, pained look in Rosita’s eyes lives in Ana, as she talks of what she learned while doing the Regal movie.

Chances are, the practical Ana saw herself in the equally-pragmatic Rosita.

"Right now, my priority is to earn money so I can save," she minces no words about why she’s doing what she’s doing. "That’s why I can negotiate when it comes to my talent fee."

But Ana does not see this as the end of her rope. This, too, shall pass, she reminds herself. And when that day comes, she will be another Jaclyn Jose, who won respect for being an actress, not a sexy star.

"I want people to see me as a serious actress. My dream is to one day do roles that don’t require me to go bold," she says.

Ana might even get there faster than she thinks. Her next picture, Star Cinema’s Dekada 70 casts her as the activist-wife of an equally-idealistic Piolo Pascual. Ana’s dusky features will come in handy for the far-from-sexy, even unglamorous.