Janella: Joining showbiz an eye-opener

Janella Salvador is quite the trouper. Case in point: When ABS-CBN put together a trade event — a concert-slash-party during which they presented their stars and shows to advertisers — a couple of months ago, she was suffering from a bad ear infection.

“I had been sick for almost two weeks na at the time,” recalls Janella, daughter of singer and stage actress Jenine Desiderio. “Pero I was working pa rin. What happened was I just got a simple cold, but then one day, I woke up and sumasakit yung isang ear ko, then it started bleeding.” She was rushed to a nearby hospital, upon which she was told that her ear infection was caused partly by the cold weather — and that all the days and nights she spent working, forgoing sleep in the process, didn’t help at all.

Despite the diagnosis, Janella pushed on through as best she could. After all, she explains, she had commitments to fulfill, and a lot of people — including her colleagues in the hit daytime show Be Careful With My Heart (which will end its run in November) and her fans — were counting on her. Aside from that, she realized she loved her job too much to let an ear infection keep her from working.

“I love my job talaga. I like acting, I like singing,” she enthuses. “Tapos yung mga fans naiisip ko din when I see my work and they’re happy with it. That’s what pushed me to still work.”

A few days after her diagnosis, she was back on the set of Be Careful With My Heart as Nikki Grace Lim, the eldest daughter of Richard Yap’s character. (She also managed to squeeze in rehearsals for the trade event, at which she did her best to sing a duet with her onscreen partner Marlo Mortel, who plays Niccolo.)

The show has been on the air for the better part of two years now, and Janella is very grateful for every second of that time — particularly because she didn’t expect her role as Nikki to become as big as it did. When she realized she was getting more screen time than usual, she kind of panicked. “I actually thought yung role ko would be super small lang, so it was like napasubo ako bigla. Parang nabigla ako in the world of showbiz, parang hindi pa ako handa at first,” she says.

Janella’s mom Jenine gave her lots of advice, but the 17 year old says joining showbiz herself was still an eye-popping shock to her system, and it took her a while to adjust. But once she did, she didn’t look back. “My mom prepared me naman, but it’s still different if you’re in it mismo,” she explains. “Kasi before, I was just a normal girl, talagang school lang ako then home. That was the time na I used to have a normal life lang. So once you’re in it, it’s different. But siyempre it’s masaya pa rin.”

Playing Nikki has opened up a lot of doors for her — aside from her endorsements, she has also started to pursue a singing career. Her first foray into the music scene came via this year’s Himig Handog P-Pop Love Songs competition, for which she interpreted Mahal Kita Pero, composed by Bobbie Mabilog. Of the experience, she says it was a blast. “It was fun. I was actually not that prepared during my recording because I also had taping the day I went into the studio. Hindi ko tuloy masyadong naaral yung song pero it turned out OK naman, thank God.”

It’s no surprise that Janella pulled it off — or that she would be a natural in the recording studio, since her mother is a singer, too. Should she be given the chance to release a full album of her very own, Janella already has an idea of what kind of record she wants to make. “Well, of course, I want to explore different genres. Pero ang gusto ko talagang genre mala-Zia Quizon, mga cool, jazzy R&B, ganun.”

If she keeps up her “the show must go on” mentality, there’s no doubt that Janella will be able to do everything she wants.