Iya’s 411: the surface, the tip of the iceberg or whatever you wanna call it. You can read a more detailed bio here and her Filmography here. This is a good place to start I suppose, and this is a working introduction…
FULL NAME:
Raelene Elaine Ebaler Villania
SCREEN NAME:
“Iya Villania”
NICKNAME:
“Bubba” or “Len” to her family,
“Rae” to her high school friends
BIRTH DATE:
29 June 1986
PLACE OF BIRTH:
Camperdown, Australia
FAMILY:
Dad is Ray, Mum is Elena, Sisters, Rhoda and Sheila
NATIONALITY:
Filipino-Australian
SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Mountain View Adventist College
(NSW, Australia)
Colegio San Agustin – 2nd to 4th year High School
(Makati City, PH)
De La Salle University – AB Psychology
(Manila, PH)
Favorites and preference change so we couldn’t be quite sure if this is accurate or as updated as it is. Who knows, Iya might suddenly develop a taste for Pepsi and do a commercial for them – it could happen! =)
NUMBER: 7 and 29
COLOR: BLUE
PLACE ON EARTH: Miami or Sydney
MOVIE: Van Wilder
ACTOR: Keanu Reeves
ACTRESS: Drew Barrymore
SINGER: Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys
BAND: No Doubt, Evanescence, Incubus, George
CARTOON CHARACTER: Cookie Monster and Tigger
ICE CREAM FLAVOR: Vanilla
SPORTS: Touch Footy
HOBBIES/PASSION: “Music. I also enjoy sports, but never had the time to play any. I really enjoy eating (laughs)! I play the piano. I surf… the net (laughs)! Oh and I do my homework. That’s a hobby! I also enjoy baking, catching up with friends and watching movies.”
NOYPI! Yes, ladies and gents, Iya is a true blue Pinoy! Check this out: Filipino Parents, Sydney upbringing, royal accent. Proud to be Pinoy she is-and flaunts it by trying to speak the brown man’s tongue.
THANKS TO THE KARAOKE!
Influenced and inspired by his dad’s fondness for karaoke, at age seven, she discovered her vocal chops from her my way-singing dad. At 13, she has been doing front acts to Filipino big time singers and actors who would visit and perform in Australia every now and then. Iya was only 13 when she was first spotted by talent manager Arnold Vegafria in a show co-produced by her mother. As Geneva Cruz’s opening act. She sang Donna Summer’s “Last Dance”. “He told me to get in touch with him if ever I decide to go to the Philippines and become a singer.” she remembers.
“HELLER”
An expression that spread around like some contagious airborne virus in the Philippines, in the same way most new phrases take on strange lives of their own. It’s supposed to be another variation of “HELLO”, supposedly of the Australian persuasion. Thanks to her Aussie twang, people are tracing its origins to our beloved, Iya. When asked about how she feels about, “I don’t really know.” (with that last word sounding like “-neur”). “That’s just the way I say “hello”, you know, I don’t even hear the ‘er”, people come up to me and say “HEL-LER”. Well, I don’t like to think about it, I saw it coming anyway, I love that word.“
THIS IS SORT OF CUTE
Her name “Iya” is an anime character’s name. (Remember that Globe XTM Commercial?) Aside from her, she’d like to be buttercup of the powerpuff girls, “she’s cute and tough“. Iya also loves tigger and cookie monster.
Guess what!?
Iya doesn’t eat pork, shrimps, prawn and crabs and she smells her food before eating it.
ABOUT THE ACCENT
Her accent isn’t something she’s conscious of. She said that, it’s the people around her who make her conscious. Iya speaks with an unapologetic Aussie accent and manages to make vowel endings sound like ‘er’ or even ‘ewr’. “I practice especially with how I deliver my lines, with my Tagalog. I mean come on, that’s exactly not my forte. It really takes a lot of practice, you can’t just expect people to understand that you come from Australia. I don’t want to give myself that reason,” she says with an Aussie twang littered with American slang and colloquial Filipino. “If its conversational, I can get away with my Tagalog, but once I’m in front of the camera, I get all conscious, I begin to get all ‘bulol’, it frustrates me. That’s how hard I am on myself. I don’t want it to be just okay, I want to sound like I really speak the language,” Villania insists.
Don’t worry Iya, we know that. =)
