November 9, 2026 · Interview by Caesar R. Vallejos

They had never acted in a movie before. Not one of them.

No Broadway. No West End. No film sets. Just scripts, early-morning video calls across time zones, and a director who believed they could do it.

Now the trailer of Project Sunburst plays everywhere. Audiences are laughing. Crying. Clapping. And the four actors at the heart of it are still catching their breath.

NET25 sat down with cast members Donna Deciembre, Kayla Thompson, Chris Cruz Davis and Mia Herbert right after the film met its audience. They talked about stepping into roles that scared them, about mental health, about loss that turned into love — and about one word every Filipino knows by heart.

Kakayanin.

“I was soaked in the movie”

Project Sunburst is not one kind of film. It is a musical. It is a documentary. It is a drama. And it has comedy too.

That mix, said Donna Deciembre, is exactly why the reactions were so varied.

“We’ve got a range of different emotions because the film has different genres,” Deciembre said. “You’ve got the musical, you’ve got the documentary aspect, and we’ve got the dramatic aspect to it as well, along with some comedy. Due to those, we’ve got a variation of reactions from the brethren who’ve seen the film.”

Kayla Thompson saw both what she expected and what she didn’t.

“Generally everyone was very excited, and they received the movie very well,” Thompson said. “I think everyone found something that resonated with them, which I think was the main purpose of the film.”

For Chris Cruz Davis, it was overwhelming.

“I was soaked in the movie,” Cruz Davis said, laughing. “From the laughter to the emotional parts, it was hitting me. The movie just surprised me as a whole. I did not expect how it’s going to be.”

He was still processing it when we spoke. “It just hit, and it hasn’t settled yet,” he said. “Probably tomorrow, I’ll feel it.”

Mia Herbert was amazed that three genres could live in one film at all.

“I was so amazed that they were able to do it very seamlessly,” Herbert said. “The combination of the funny and serious and dramatic — I think it was very well blended together.”

First-timers, all of them

On screen, they look like seasoned professionals. They are not.

“It was all of our first time to act and first movie to be in,” Deciembre said. “So we’re really, really grateful to be part of such an amazing project.”

Deciembre plays Alice. Before filming, she said, she was “very unsculpted” and “rough around the edges.”

“As I read the script and internalized Alice, I really had to think about her emotions, her attitude, how she’ll behave in different situations,” she said. “When we got here to the Philippines, we were given some acting lessons. As the movie progressed, we were shaped and sculpted into our individual characters. And it’s all thanks to Direk Carlo.”

That name came up again and again.

Thompson, who plays Taylor, grew up doing musical theater as a child — but film was a whole new world.

“It was not so easy to step into the role of Taylor, because I’m not as shy as she is,” Thompson said. “You have to get into her mindset of being negatively impacted by your emotions.”

On set, the director pushed her in the opposite direction from her nature.

“I’m more expressive in real life, but the instructions were to be more subtle, because that’s Taylor’s personality,” she said. “It was a nice challenge for me to do the opposite of what I’m used to. I think that helped me improve as an actor, and come out of my own shell in real life.”

“There are different ways to show anger. You don’t have to shout.”

For Chris Cruz Davis, the very idea of acting was frightening.

“Just the thought of it was so difficult for me — how am I going to do this?” he said. “I’ve never done acting before. Maybe I did rapping on stage, but it’s completely different. The thought of being in front of people, doing certain emotions — it was a scary thought for me.”

So he trusted the process. Workshops. Video calls early in the morning to beat the time difference. Line-by-line read-throughs of the whole script.

One lesson stuck with him.

“There was an angry part, and he says, ‘There’s different ways to show anger, you don’t have to shout,’” Cruz Davis recalled of the director. “He gave all those tips, and he helped us more when we were in the Philippines with our workshops.”

Before every scene, a team was there to walk the actors through their lines.

“They really guided us,” he said. “I just gave myself to them and relied on them. It’s all God’s way of doing it. I put my trust in Him, and the director, and all the staff in this production.”

Mia Herbert’s role is smaller, she admits. But it was no less meaningful.

“I’ve wanted to act since I was little, and this is my first time acting as well — unless you count acting in front of a mirror when you’re little,” Herbert said with a laugh. “Director Carlo was amazing in really helping us and guiding us. And we put our trust in God, and it all worked out in the end.”

Taylor’s story: mental health, center stage

One of the film’s most important threads belongs to Thompson’s character. Taylor struggles with her mental health.

And audiences are responding.

“From the reactions of the audience, and even the things that people have said to me from seeing the movie, a lot of people have felt that Taylor specifically resonated because of her mental health journey,” Thompson said.

She is from New York. She sees the same conversation happening there — and everywhere.

“I think that’s something universal,” she said. “Mental health, especially in the youth today, is a big topic of conversation. Everywhere in the world, I believe it’s getting more attention now than it has in the past, which is important.”

In one key scene, Taylor and another character, Edwin, talk openly about depression. Thompson said that moment was written on purpose.

“The way the script was written, we really wanted to put that center stage for a moment and speak to the youth, especially — to acknowledge that mental health is real,” she said. “There are things that we can do to treat it. And especially as members of the Church, what we can rely on spiritually, and how we can also get guidance and healing.”

For Thompson, the role was more than a performance.

“It was an honor to portray that and be that anchor for people,” she said. “It’s important that we have more of this in the future, where we can talk about very important topics like mental health on this scale.”

Many cultures, one production

Project Sunburst brought together Filipinos and non-Filipinos. Different nationalities. Different backgrounds. Different time zones.

For Deciembre, that was a gift.

“You grow when you work with a lot of people, and you get to understand different cultures and their beliefs as well,” she said.

And she had special words for the Filipino crew.

“Behind the scenes, they really took care of us when we were backstage,” Deciembre said. “We’re so grateful for their hospitality when we arrived. We really enjoyed working with different people.”

That is the Filipino way. Asikaso. You take care of your guests.

Loss, and what comes after

Chris Cruz Davis plays a character who goes looking for one thing — and finds something else entirely.

When we asked him how he connected to that, he paused. Then he shared something deeply personal.

“Some people I know, they lost their loved ones and they go through a hard time,” he said. “After a while, something in their life comes to them, and their life gets better.”

Then he told his own story.

“When my mom passed away, one of the sisters who was taking care of my mom — she was my friend as well, but we were kind of getting to know each other,” Cruz Davis said. “And then she became my wife.”

He laughed. “If you were to go deep into that story — save it for another time. It’s a very nice story.”

The lesson, he said, is simple. You can walk through grief and come out the other side with a better life.

“For other people, they might have lost a loved one, or they grew up with no father, no mother,” he said. “But they end up surrounded by people who can be their family. I think they can relate to both.”

For many Filipinos, that will hit close to home. We know loss. We know the families that form around us when we need them most.

Why watch Project Sunburst?

We asked each of them one last question. Why should people watch?

Mia Herbert: “I think everyone can find something in this movie that they can resonate with, whether they’re going through a really good time in their life or a really difficult time,” Herbert said. “When I watched it for the first time, I thought, ‘Oh, I remember feeling that way,’ or ‘I can relate to this character.’”

She also loves how the film’s very different characters learn to work as one.

“They all open each other’s eyes and they learn to work as a team,” she said. “I think that’s very beautiful about humans. We’re all different, but we all are the same.”

Kayla Thompson pointed to the film’s global cast.

“Having Filipinos and non-Filipinos at the forefront may allow people to see themselves — whoever you are, wherever you’re watching,” Thompson said. “That could be the doorway for you to enter, then stay for the whole time and receive inspiration from the story that we’re telling — especially about the history of the Church and the perspective of the Church from outsiders.”

Her advice: come with an open mind and an open heart. “There’s really going to be something to take home for you,” she said.

Donna Deciembre brought it back to one word.

“There’s a keyword in the film. It’s ‘Kakayanin’ — it means ‘You can do it,’” Deciembre said. “That struck many of the Filipinos, and hopefully all the other non-Filipino brethren as well, because everyone’s going through something.”

She hopes the film can lift up anyone carrying a heavy load.

“Hopefully this film can serve as an inspiration to those who are going through tough challenges in life,” she said. “Just enjoy the movie, and everything will go well. Kakayanin.”

And Chris Cruz Davis? He kept it short.

“I think they spoke for me,” he said, to laughter from his castmates. “The music is good. There’s so much to take away from watching the movie. The trailer already grabbed people’s attention, but when you watch this movie, it’ll take you in there. It’ll stay with you.”

His final word: “Just go watch the movie.”

The word that carries us

Filipinos have said kakayanin through every storm. Through every flood. Through every goodbye at the airport. Through every long night when the bills piled up and the future looked dark.

It is not a promise that life will be easy. It is a promise that we will get through it.

Four first-time actors from different corners of the world learned that word making Project Sunburst. Now they are handing it back to us — on the big screen.

Kakayanin. You can do it.

This interview was conducted by NET25 with the cast of Project Sunburst. Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Watch the Project Sunburst trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAZUsN3vbho

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