Inquirer Interviews Maricel Pagulayan

The Philippine Daily Inquirer features today an interview with Maricel Lopez Pagulayan, a Filipino-American who was Superman Return’s visual effects production supervisor.

Inquirer’s Hollywood columnist Ruben V. Nepales, in an article entitle “Fil-Am FX expert helps Superman fly” in his “Only in Hollywood” column, reports that Pagulayan was touched when she was told that Nepales contacted her because of the “unprecedented number of requests from readers” who must have noticed her Filipino name in Superman Return’s closing credits.

Oriah and I were able to watch the advanced screening of Superman Returns the night before it opened, but we didn’t notice Pagulayan’s name. We should have paid more attention to the credits. We watched the movie again last night but missed her name again. We only learned about Pagulayan from the people at the office.

According to the article, Pagulayan was was born and raised in the United States, but she studied here in the Philippines for two years during high school. She took up political science at the University of California in Berkeley, and got involved with Filipino student groups that made her more aware of her Filipino roots. She said reading books by Carlos Bulosan, author of “America is in the heart,” made her appreciate the hardships that the first wave of Filipino immigrants went through.”

In the interview, Pagulayan was quoted as saying “We got to know every centimeter of Brandon Routh’s body.” That means they had to scan Routh’s body “in order to create him digitally.”

I couldn’t find a link to the interview on INQ7, so those who are interested will just have to get today’s issue of the Inquirer.