Despite the word being thrown around a lot, few actresses in the Philippines deserve to be called “iconic.” There's one who really needs no introduction, but we’ll try to give her one anyway. She’s so respected and well-known in the industry that she can go by just her first name—Hilda—and everyone would know who we’re talking about.
Even from a slight distance, one can feel a dignified and serious grace emanating from Hilda Koronel. And yet, once you approach and get a chance to speak with her, she is affable and even funny.
“What if I don’t want to answer?” she says with a laugh at the start of the interview when she was told she could answer freely. “Just teasing lang, ha!”
Koronel started acting at a very young age, signing her first contract at the age of 12. “I had no plans of doing it, but somebody saw me sa LVN Studios,” she reminisces. “Tinanong lang ako if I wanted to be an actress. I didn’t even know what that meant because I was very young.” Her mother convinced her to say yes, and, as there was a film being shot at the back at that same time, they did a screen test to see if she was photogenic or not. “And after that, that was it. I signed my contract.”
It was an unexpected moment that led to a long and illustrious career, which includes the eponymous TV series Hilda (which she fondly refers to as The Hilda Show) and several dozen films in the decades that followed. She has witnessed how filmmaking and TV have evolved over the years.
“When I started,” she shares, “I think black and white pa. Nagta-transition kami to color. We used to use films, but now digital na kayo. So, every dekada, nagbabago nang nagbabago. Plus sa mga style ng mga directors, paiba-iba.”
Her filmography is wonderfully diverse and is a fascinating representation of Philippine cinema across generations—from such critically acclaimed masterpieces like Maynila, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag and Insiang (the first Filipino movie to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival) to classic light-hearted fare like Working Girls and Crying Ladies, to memorable films like Gaano Kadalas Ang Minsan? and Tanging Yaman.
Koronel has also received awards from pretty much all the country’s major award-giving bodies, such as FAMAS, the Metro Manila Film Festival, and Gawad Urian. She says the most memorable award she’s received is the first one, for Best Supporting Actress. “I won it when I was 13, sa FAMAS,” she recalls. “I was so young, and I did not expect to win anything of that sort at that age. And wala pang nakakatalo until now kasi wala ako sa ‘child category.’ Nasa ‘adult category’ ako. That was for Santiago. So that was a bit exciting for me.”
