As part of the cast of the new Primetime Bida soap Dolce Amore, Cherie Gil said working with director Cathy Garcia-Molina was one of the main reasons that made her say yes to the project. 'I was in New York at that time. I was on holiday with the family and we visited my parents in California. I had just left New York and I was gone for four months. i think that was the longest time I was away and out of the blue they called and asked me if I have a Shengen visa (laughs). I said, ‘Why?’ and they said, ‘There’s a part for you. Can you fly?’ I accepted it wholeheartedly. It’s a great blessing and I got very, very excited especially when they said it was going to be with Cathy Garcia-Molina. I was very excited because I love working with Cathy. It’s been a while. My very first teleserye when I came back from Italy after living there for a while was with Cathy and Juday (Judy Ann Santos). I forgot the title (laughs). Pero matagal na yun. That was the first time I worked with her was way before she got married and all that,” she shared during the Dolce Amore grand presscon held last February 3 inside ABS-CBN.

Unlike her previous kontrabida roles, Cherie said direk Cathy is making her character less of an antagonist in the show. 'Yun ang maganda kay Cathy kasi ang tendency ko noon is the fact that since I wear hats and I wear all these taray clothes so nagpapataray rin ako. But Cathy makes sure that she brings me down with my bad habits na playing kontrabida because there’s no villain in this story, just in real life there’s always a tendency to do certain things for a reason. So she makes me alalay. I play a strict mother and we own a very, very big telecom company in Italy,” she said.

Cherie has already worked with Enrique Gil, playing his mother in the 2013 series Muling Buksan ang Puso. For the actress’s first time meeting Liza Soberano, she had to do a bit of research. 'With Liza, I haven’t had the chance to meet her. It was a fresh thing to me. Forgive me but I’ve never in fact heard about Liza. So I told her straight away, ‘I had to Google you and you look astoundingly beautiful!’ (laughs). I didn’t realize how overnight sikat na pala siya dito. Now I know,” she recalled.

The veteran actress also flew to Italy to shoot some scenes with Liza abroad. 'We had a lot of fun and in seven days we shot in Italy many scenes. And I have to say, Liza worked very, very hard with the Italian language. I told her she was doing fine. She spoke it very, very well. In fact, we’d wake up early in the morning at 5 a.m. just to drive to the set and in the bus we’d be practicing it over and over. Masipag si Liza,” she added.

Cherie admitted that having lived in Italy before was an advantage for her in Dolce Amore. She plays the role of Liza Soberano’s mother and they both had to speak in Italian for the series. 'I don’t really know how (laughs). Kunwari lang yun. I grew up with Spanish so phonetically it’s similar so it’s kind of easy to pick up and I lived in Italy for a while for like three years. My kids speak it fluently. That was in 2000 so matagal tagal na ding hindi naka-practice yung dila. And as Liza says, it really helps when you live there and you hear it a lot. They’ve been helping us a lot with the grammar. Because the grammar is not easy. So parang nakakailang to sound like that because the viewers never would have heard me speak this way nor have I ever heard myself speak that way. Sometimes nagiging Ukrainian eh (laughs) mas mahirap mag-accent so it’s been a real challenge,” she explained.

Another thing Cherie is looking forward to this year is getting the chance to meet one of the actresses she has always looked up to. Cherie is part of the Lav Diaz movie Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis that is part of the competition in the prestigious Berlinale Film Festival. “Finally I’m going to get to meet her! I’m going to Berlin kasi Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis is in the competition and I’m part of the movie. I play a tikbalang. One of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. And Meryl Streep is the president of the jury. I’m going to finally get to meet her. I’ll kiss her feet if I have to. Pinayagan ako ng ABS-CBN maraming salamat. It’s my dream come true,” she said.

Dolce Amore starts airing on Primetime Bida starting February 15, Monday on ABS-CBN. Starring Enrique Gil, Liza Soberano, Matteo Guidicelli, Kean Cipriano, Cherie Gil, Rio Locsin, Edgar Mortiz, and Sunshine Cruz.