Alden Richards: Beneath the dimple

One of the country's most eligible heartthrobs and star of some of the country's biggest box office and pop culture hits from AlDub to Hello, Love, Again, Alden Richards is introspective and spiritual and can quote popular clichés as readily as he does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. He's deeper than his famous dimple.

- JOANNE RAE M. RAMIREZ

In a recent interview, I unearthed nine things about him that are hardly known by the public, including myself:

1. He cried behind a tarpaulin after meeting Tom Cruise during a Mission Impossible event in Seoul.

"Prior to flying to Seoul, we asked Paramount Pictures if we would get a chance for a meet-and-greet with the one and only Mr. Tom Cruise, and there were no commitments. But it was more than enough for me just to be invited to Seoul to see him in person because Tom Cruise is my childhood idol, hero and inspiration. I watched all his films, from the Mission films to Jack Reacher, from Top Gun to Top Gun Maverick. He is a jack-of-all-trades, but he is a master of all.

"And then I was actually surprised when I was told that I was going to meet him. And the instructions were, you can only ask two questions from Tom. I was made last in line because they said, 'I think you have the best story to tell. Tom will be very glad to hear your story.'"

"So I told myself, I'm not going to ask any question. I'm just going to tell him my story in one minute and 30 seconds. I wanted to be brief, but I wanted to be impactful. That's why when I approached him, I told him, 'I'm an actor from the Philippines, and I've been in the industry for 15 years, and you've inspired me a lot. I've seen all of your films.' And I enumerated all the titles and then he was just saying, 'Wow, wow!' over and over again.