Ria Atayde: 30, thriving and comfortable in her own skin

When Ria Atayde turned 30 last March 23, she pulled off a skin-baring photoshoot — make that two photoshoots — that surprised even her own family.

One was mounted by her long-time glam team and another under the direction of fellow actress and close friend Kathryn Bernardo, whom Ria jokingly described as her “real momager.”

“Kasi I’m 30 na po, it’s a great way to welcome my adulthood a hundred percent,” Ria happily noted during an intimate media interview.

But being 30, flirty and confident in her own skin didn’t mean a change in image, she clarified. “It’s not like I would go into more daring (projects). I mean, if the role is worth being daring, then go. Pero hindi basta-basta maging daring yung image ko. I mean, when else would I be photographed like that?”

As for the reaction of her family, including mom Sylvia Sanchez and kuya Arjo Atayde, she laughingly shared, “Buti nalang busy sila sa campaign.” The actor is running for representative in the first district of Quezon City in the May 2022 elections. “My mom liked the photos, but Arjo… according to my younger sister, he was like, ‘Oh, who’s that?’ ‘Ate.’ ‘Ha?’ Ganun lang daw, hahaha!’”

She added, “With my dad naman kasi, the day I did the shoot, we had a family dinner. And then, I was scanning and making him see it. Sabi niya, why do you want to show everybody your panty? Hahaha! My goodness. But I guess it’s just part of it.”

Besides wanting to enter her 30s with less inhibitions, the actress who experienced weight issues in the past said another reason she was “so game” for the pictorial is that she’s most happy with herself now.

“It’s not that I’m at my fittest. But, at this point, I really feel like I’m happy. In terms of emotional, mental and physical wellbeing, right now is like a good time for me and this is something that I really want to remember,” she added.

With the photos on this page (and more shared on her Instagram) as proof, Ria is looking better than ever. She said her current figure is a result of having a healthier relationship with food. If she used to finish off as much as “six to eight slices of pizza” in one sitting, she said she’s content with “one or two slices” now that she has learned to be “more controlled” with her diet “without intentionally controlling it.”

She said she had developed this attitude during the pandemic, especially when her parents got sick of COVID and she had a back surgery that didn’t allow her to do strenuous workouts.

“I think that’s a big help in terms of the way my relationship with food changed. For the longest time, I hated food, konting kain lang, ‘Bad Ria, bad Ria.’ But because I realized I can’t do my workout, I had to have a healthier relationship with food. I still enjoy the food that I like, but I learned how to do it in moderation,” Ria said.

The actress was also asked if she’s feeling the pressure Pinays are put through when they hit their 30s.

“Of course, especially for women, we have a biological clock that tells you that there’s only a certain age where your prime eggs are alam mo yun and stuff like that. These are things I actually do think about, especially because I have kabarkadas who are already on their second kids. They have lives with their families. And in this culture, sa Philippines, a measure of success is whether or not you have a family or whether or not you have a stable family, and I think that’s always at the back of my mind,” she admitted.

“But, I think, what gives me comfort is that I love my life right now. I love what I do. Not everybody can say they love their jobs, they love what they’re doing. You know, not everybody can say they have time in their own hands and stuff like that. I think that’s keeping me less pressured. It also helps that the people around me constantly make me feel like it’s okay.”

Making what she loves doing extra exciting these days is her first TV project with her mom Sylvia, iWantTFC’s early Mother’s Day offering Misis Piggy, which streams for free starting tomorrow, April 25.

Sylvia plays a single mom who was able to raise her three children by running a meat stall at the market. Ria portrays her eldest daughter, a nurse who wants to work in Canada.

Ria said, “The first project I did with my mom is technically the first show I ever did, Ningning (in 2015). Although on that show, at most, our characters’ interactions were really just, ‘Good afternoon po,’ you know, what I mean? Teacher ako ng apo niya so we didn’t have meaty scenes where we actually got to converse and exchange emotions. So, I consider (Misis Piggy) really as the first project we worked on together.”

Ria is set to celebrate seven years as an actress. She was doing post-college studies in Spain when showbiz beckoned. But it took several years before she finally got to act alongside her mom.

She surmised, “My mom kasi is very cautious about me and my career. Based on how I see it, I know she doesn’t want me to be compared to her. I know she wants to protect me from that as much as possible. And I think, when I was a little bit younger in terms of acting, siguro di pa ako prepared to work with her. Yung hilaw pa basically.

“Maybe, this is the time we can say na medyo naging hinog na to work with her without the worry of feeling napag-iwanan ng nanay ko and you know, she’s a tough act to keep up with.

“I feel like it’s only right and it’s something that I prepared myself for. I feel like it was worth the wait. It’s really a great project. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.”

Initially though, she thought Sylvia would be a “clingy” stage mom on set, but she was allowed the space to do her own thing and treated as a co-actor. When she learned that the first scene they would film together was a full-on mother-daughter confrontation, to be shown in Episode 1, she recalled,“I was really like, seryoso ba talaga kayo? Is this a joke, it’s my first time working with my mom and you gave me crying scenes on my first day (laughs)?

“I think in hindsight, it was such a great idea. Because I feel like that’s the hardest thing to do, an emotional scene, and we got it out of the way instantly. And once I knew that kaya ko na gumawa ng emotional scenes with my mom, everything came easier.”

In that particular scene, she further shared, “We hugged each other and I cried more than I did… and that’s how I was like, okay, it was so nice to have worked with my mom.”

In interviews, Sylvia has repeatedly expressed her pride in Ria’s performance in Misis Piggy. In the latter’s case, she finally understood why her mom “lasted over 30 years in the industry.”

Ria said, “I get the way she is, who she is and why everybody respects her so much and it’s so nice to be able to witness it firsthand.”