"It has to be two words: rock star."

That was Jake Cuenca's reply when we asked him to describe his Eros character in The Iron Heart during the show's finale mediacon recently.

Playing Eros, who in the series becomes a perfect foil to Richard Gutierrez's Apollo character, is something that Cuenca relished, as he was given a free hand to "personalize" his attack on it.

Cuenca, consummate artist that he is, really invested in his character, something that he learned from the late actor Eddie Garcia. He bought his own prop guns and accessories and gave his character his own distinct sartorial taste.

"With Eros, as fun as it was to portray him, it's very, very challenging. There are times na when you're exhausted on the set, kapag pagod na pagod ka na, sometimes it's hard to try to keep the voice, sometimes it's hard to keep the accent kasi pagod ka na, eh, so you try to get it right, you try to do it right," he said.

For the first time, revealed Cuenca, he didn't go out of character even in his free time.

"I was never out of character with this one to the point na even in my free time I was trying to find him all the time kasi I really enjoyed myself. One thing I'll never forget about this role, this is the first time they really allowed me to really put layers, to put an accent, to put on a voice, to change things. They allowed me to personalize it."

The series' finale is one for the books as it will be shot abroad and will involve katana fighting.

"I've been training for this for two weeks now. It's gonna be intense," he said.

While it's Cuenca's first time to be wielding a katana sword, sword-fighting isn't new to him as "I've done it in the past like kami ni Coco (Martin) sa Panday.

His promise for the series' finale: "I think our ending is beautiful. Itong ending na ito, it's very, very emotional, it's very, very intense pero lalaking–lalaki 'yung eksena," he said.

Photoshoot for P1 million loot

This talent manager's greed for money has reached colossal proportions.

We're saying this because we were informed that this manager duped her wards one time into believing all they were doing was just a pictorial.

The manager gathered five of her wards and told them it had been a time that they had recent photos. So a pictorial was set pronto.

But that wasn't all there was to it. Without the wards knowing, the photoshoot was in fact for billboards and other collaterals to promote the cold-cuts products of a politician
-businessman from the North with whom the talent manager has had long ties.

When the manager was issued checks worth P1 million, she told the politician-businessman to keep mum about it and not tell her wards that it was for their services rendered.

Why was the talent manager confident that her secret would not be discovered by her wards? Because they didn't frequent the North.