If you have been following their works for quite some time, it is safe to say you’ll never look at Enchong and Jasmine the same way again after checking out the latest Netflix Pinoy film, Alter Me which dropped last November 15 on the streaming service.

Before both were busy helping the victims of Typhoon Rolly and Ulysses, we had a chat with the two along with the film’s director RC Delos Reyes who tells us the reason why they opened this world that may or may not be a Pandora’s box for everybody, “When we came up with the story wanted to explore the idea of connections. In the advent of social media and technology nowadays we tend to create alternative worlds wherein we put in masks we feel like our lives we can find fulfillment or those fillers that will fill up our lives.” 

In the budding world of Finsta, the story follows Aimee(Jasmine), an uptight HR manager who looks for ways on how to release her emotions fluidly as she finds herself in the mentorship of Uno (Enchong), the hottest and top escort in the Alter World who helps her do just that by the means of casual sexual encounters that might just turn to something else. According to Delos Reyes, the film’s writer Danno Kristoper C. Mariquit is the one to credit for the research that was put in the film especially that it’s a very secretive and mysterious world.

In a mainstream film industry where raunchy scenes still have a shock factor for the common audience, it was a marvel to see Enchong and Jasmine perform their roles with no inhibition. Specially Enchong, who went all out to live up to his well-endowed character Uno’s monicker “Daxxx.” Though they shot the film after the holidays, Enchong managed to maintain his physique as he said that it was a gamble which was worth it in the end, “Direk, bantayan mo ako ah and just help me create the character. Just protect me—because I remember telling Direk, edit mo na lang yung part na hindi masyado makinis… I also remember Direk saying na ako nang bahala, and that’s what happened in the film.”

As for Jasmine, she already had her fair share of cutting edge films such as Transit, Siargao, Dementia to name a few, but it’s this film that she said she opened up the most to, “It’s like when you’ve grown up, and you experience something for the first time. It felt like that. Na ‘Oh, this is what it feels like.’ This is the added value of it on screen ito iyong nabibigay niyang extra for the story, and it is a nice feeling and a nice thing to overcome as an actor, dahil iyong comfortability mo iyong na-challenge doon more than the acting.”

More than the titillating and effortless chemistry between the two, they wish for the audience to dig deeper in reflecting about the lives they lead on social media, as Jas puts it, “I’m really curious to see more than the alter world, everyone reacting to it and finding some kind of similarity kasi the alter world is not just focused on that one aspect of being sexual and just what Aimee said it’s a way to release your emotions and some of us even celebrities have alter Instagram accounts or Twitter accounts.”

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