TOTOO BA: LizQuen was first choice in Hello, Love, Goodbye?

Hello, Love, Goodbye made a milestone on Philippine TV and movies when it put together two A-listers of rival networks.

Star Cinema’s 2019 blockbuster hit featured ABS-CBN’s Kathryn Bernardo and GMA-7’s Alden Richards, both of whom were coming from two rival, prime love teams.

Kathryn was the other half of KathNiel with Daniel Padilla, while Alden was the Al in AlDub with Maine Mendoza a.k.a. Yaya Dub.

But did you know that Kathryn and Alden’s pairing in the movie was not the original plan for Hello, Love, Goodbye?

PHOTO: Star Cinema

Apparently, the movie was first intended for the love team of Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil.

Star Cinema managing director and critically-acclaimed filmmaker Olive Lamasan candidly revealed this in her interview with Toni Gonzaga that aired on the latter’s YouTube channel on October 17.

She said, “Originally, LizQuen iyan, e, and then it became Kathryn-DJ, and then, Kathryn-Alden.”

DJ is the nickname of Daniel, who first revealed in an interview with Boy Abunda in 2019 that he was the first choice to play the role that eventually went to Alden in Hello, Love, Goodbye.

However, Daniel turned down the project as he and Kathryn wanted to focus on separate projects at the time.

In Olive’s Toni Talks interview, she said that Liza was doing Darna at the time they were conceptualizing Hello, Love, Goodbye. This was why she could not do the movie.

Liza would later be pulled out of the Darna project in April 2019, a month after ABS-CBN formally announced Kathryn and Alden’s team-up in Hello, Love, Goodbye.

Olive also recalled how they started the conceptualization of the film which was set in Hong Kong.

“We gathered, I gathered the creatives. Sige isip isip tayo, ‘tapos wala rin, ano?

“’Tapos patayo na ako. Patayo na ako and then biglang [naisip ko], ‘What’s our next Milan? What’s our next Anak? What’s our next OFW story?’

“’What if there’s this girl blah blah blah, goes to Hong Kong…’”

Milan and Anak were two of Star Cinema’s successful movies that highlighted the struggles of OFWs.

Olive continued, “’Tapos nagsisisigaw na si Carmi [Raymundo, writer] ‘Inang!’

“’Tapos nagdugtung dugtungan na, ‘tapos nabuo na namin iyong kuwento, ‘tapos tumatalon na lahat, that’s it!”

Hello, Love, Goodbye tells the story of Joy (Kathryn), a domestic helper in Hong Kong who wishes to migrate to Canada to earn more money and practice her education as a nurse. She is on the verge of leaving Hong Kong when she meets Ethan (Alden), a bartender whom she learns to love.

A certified blockbuster hit in 2019, Hello, Love, Goodbye earned PHP880.6 million in ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing Filipino movie of all time.