Kylie Verzosa on Horror, The Housemaid, and Mental Health

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PHOTO: BJ Pascual

Custom slip dress by Mikee Andrei

Beauty pageants are a tricky thing. You're either a fan of them or you aren't, and either way you almost always have to explain yourself.

If there's anyone that doesn't need to explain themselves, it's the Beauty Queen. Kylie Verzosa isn't just a beauty queen, she's a repeat contender, first joining Binibining Pilipinas in 2015, where she placed 15th, and then again the very next year, where she was crowned Binibining Pilipinas International 2016. She would go on to take the Miss International crown that year.

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PHOTO: BJ PASCUAL

To add to this, she reveals that her mother was a Beauty Queen, too—she had joined Binibing Pilipinas back in 1985 and made it to the semi-finals.

"It's not out in public," she adds. "The pageant fans know."

It seems strange that something that seems quite significant would be a well-kept secret. But then again, beauty pageantry was once a tricky thing for Kylie herself.

"The first time I went on a beauty pageant, I actually hid it from my friends," she confesses. "My friends didn't see modeling or the entertainment industry as a job. We were really meant to climb the ladder."

By 'ladder,' it seems, they really meant the corporate ladder. At the time, Kylie was a student at University, where it is presumed that she and her friends were the 'pretty ones' on campus.

PHOTO: BJ PASCUAL

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It didn't matter that she happened to be taking a particularly difficult and competitive degree at the Ateneo de Manila—Maganda lang sila, hindi naman sila matalino was how she describes how models and actors and beauty queens were quickly and roundly judged.

There are all sorts of tinges of different feelings under this dismissive statement, of course: kolehiyala bitterness and envy (the male counterpart of which is more toxic and longer-lasting), misplaced Ateneo pride (I know because I have it too), and plain old middle-class kaartehan.

The truth is, Kylie paid for her last year of B.S. Business Management by practicing solid business management, paying tuition with her income from gigs in commercial, print, and ramp. She also created an online mental health support group and became a pre-school teacher, all around the time she became a beauty queen.

PHOTO: BJ PASCUAL

Beauty pageants have come a few steps along from the exploitative, explicitly sexist pageants of old; much has been done to present them as empowering and celebratory experiences, both for the contestants and the audiences.

The contestants see to it that their answers and their causes are more relevant and incisive. Instead of global muses and trophies, they now see themselves as global citizens who take their roles seriously. Kylie herself has chosen mental health as her platform and has played a key part in bringing issues such as depression and suicide awareness to light.

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"When I joined Binibini, they asked me what I wanted to talk about," Kylie says. "I said I wanted to talk about mental health."

Isn't that a sad advocacy? Why not something happy, like 'women and children'? she had been asked, before she pointed to her own year-long bout with depression as the reason for what had seemed a curious choice.

"In 2015, that wasn't a thing," she reminds me.

But that was just 2016! some of you might say, at which point I must remind you that the entertainment segment of that year's Miss Universe program was performed by Flo Rida and Boys II Men.

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PHOTO: BJ PASCUAL

Another important truth is that the ladder to CEO and the ladder to Miss International are equally and largely made of clever ambition and raw DNA. Not only is it much easier to climb the ladder to CEO, there are literally tens of thousands of men and women who make CEO every year, but only one person can win a particular pageant.

If these truths still don't carry, the most important truth to Kylie Verzosa is that, unlike many titleholders and crown bearers, she has come even further along. Coming in two days on streaming platform Vivamax is Kylie's first major film, a Filipino remake of Korean director Im Sang-Soo's acclaimed 2010 film The Housemaid, directed by Roman Perez.

Yes, this is true: An Ateneo B.S. Business Management graduate chose an erotic thriller to be the vehicle for her first starring role. In some of her publicity photos, her nudity is so complete that the images require the intervention of a seasoned Photoshop airbrush artist. In others, she lies naked in a bathtub filled with what looks like blood—in my mind, it is the blood of bitterly envious corporate managers and kolehiyala graduates.

PHOTO: BJ PASCUAL

Lingerie by La Senza and custom dress by Mikee Andrei

"I actually asked for that kind of movie," she says, her long limbs making unreal angles in the call.

This is what being made of model material is like, I tell myself. You literally need to train to know where to put your arms and legs in a video call because they're too wild and beautiful to be confined to a Zoom screen. "I knew it was going to be sexy," she adds.

The Housemaid is an erotic thriller. Kylie confesses her love for films decidedly on the dark side, citing Gone Girl, You, and Fight Club as favorites.

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I have seen the Im Sang-Soo film and enjoyed it. It is an easy candidate for a Filipino remake, as it covers familiar Filipino themes: the class struggle, family power plays, and that Filipino specialty, twisted illicit sex between two people at least 15 years apart in age, one of whom is in a position of authority over the other.

It's a chamber film that gets pretty dark, especially when you're watching it in the middle of the pandemic. I can't wait to see our version, mainly because I have also seen the trailer of it.

From what I can glean from repeated viewings (for research) of the trailer, noir lighting and creepy male gazes and absurdly short yaya uniforms and all, it is a pretty faithful remake. Kylie plays the newly conscripted household help hired by the man of the house played by Albert Martinez ("Tito Albert," she repeatedly and terrifyingly calls him in our conversation), who, alongside Jaclyn Jose, completes a humongously talented cast.

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Bodysuit by La Senza, collar by Bershka, and custom top by Mikee Andrei

Now I'm the one who finds myself asking Kylie: Why not something happy? Why not, like, 'women and children'? Yes, there are women and children in the film, I realize, but—spoiler alert—they don't all end up right in the head or in life.

"I'm not my character," she admonishes me, and as she wags a finger made longer and more elegant by an exquisitely manicured nail, she makes a promise: "All my characters do the craziest shit!"

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She's building anticipation for the film, of course; perhaps the bigger spoiler alert here is that Kylie Verzosa looks remarkably different on a video screen than in a still photo. Her face is unbound from the standard catwalk expression of criminal nonchalance. Her movements are let loose from the beauty queen's regimented economy of movement—the rehearsed signature walk, the turn, the cupped wave.

This is not the snooty brand-bound confidence of a model, or the eager exuberance of the beauty queen; Kylie has climbed yet another ladder and has become an actor, one that takes another leap by choosing to perform a tough role in an erotic thriller.

"Why do I need to be conscious about this leap?" Kylie asks. She's the one throwing the questions now. This is no longer a beauty pageant. We're still the ones sitting in the dark, an audience eagerly awaiting and admiring a queen.

In this story: Photographs by BJ Pascual • Creative direction by Eldzs Mejia • Styling by Adrianne Concepcion assisted by Dodley Gallardo • Makeup by Anthea Bueno • Hair by Renz Pangilinan • Production design by Aren Dale Santos • Cover design by Raphael Quiason • Shot on location at Avire Tower events place • Special thanks to Viva Films and Alphonso Reyes

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