MANILA, Philippines?Calling from her home in Alabang, screen legend Anita Linda couldn?t contain her excitement upon learning that she won Best Actress for ?Adela? from the Young Critics Circle? her third citation, after the Cinemanila and Gawad Tanglaw, for the same film.

?I never expected that ?Adela? would make all these beautiful things possible, for me and for the rest of the cast and crew.?

She is especially thrilled for director Adolfo Alix Jr. because ?Adela? topped all the categories at the YCC.

?It?s a wonderful life,? she said. ?God knows that all I want to do in my remaining years is to continue acting.? Jokingly, she added: ?I?m proud that at my age producers still hire me for movies and TV shows.?

Anita turned 84 last Nov. 23.

Apart from the ABS-CBN soap opera ?Tayong Dalawa,? she is starring in two independent films: Joven Tan?s ?Booking? with Emilio Garcia and Snooky Serna; and Mao Clarin Sy?s ?Amamanhig? with Alfred Vargas.

In ?Booking,? she said, ?I play a grandmother who?s pimping her own flesh and blood. I couldn?t bear to utter some of the risqué lines, but I had to.?

In ?Amamanhig,? a period thriller set in 1927, she also struggled with long lines in poetic Tagalog. She said it was like going back to the set of a Gerry de Leon movie.

On ?Tayong Dalawa,? she has to deliver Chinese words. ?All I ask is to get the script in advance so I can memorize my lines. I love acting because it keeps my mind sharp.?

She put her quick thinking to good use recently when the cab she was riding was held up along Edsa. Anita recalled: ?We were stuck in traffic. The robber tried to open the door; I pulled it back and and locked it.?

Poor robber didn?t stand a chance. Anita was an action star in her days at Premiere Productions.