A little respect for Marian Rivera

MANILA, Philippines - Show business is a fickle industry, much like the weather we’ve been having lately. Showbiz can rain on any given artista’s parade without warning and turn up the heat when someone’s in the hot seat. Taking in Marian Rivera’s six-year career, complete with the requisite breaks and career milestones, some 25 to 30 lucrative endorsements at any given point and enough Internet and Twitter controversy to bring a bearded Middle Eastern tyrant down, it’s hard to believe that she almost didn’t get her big break. To be more specific: If Angel Locsin didn’t jump the fence from GMA to ABS CBN six years ago, Marian still might be playing supporting roles today. Or working her old job at a mental hospital. Seriously.

Tracing our steps back to 2005, it was the year GMA got the rights to remake the hit early ’90s Mexican telenovela Marimar, and with Angel as the studio’s resident crown jewel at the time, naturally, the title role was hers. While Angel is still a huge star in her own right, when she signed with rival network ABS CBN, GMA wasted no time finding her replacement. To put it mildly: Angel out, Marian in. “Well, everybody knows that Marimar was really for (Angel),” Marian told Star entertainment editor Ricky Lo in 2009, “But I think one of the reasons why the public accepted me as Marimar is that siguro nakita naman nila na talagang pinag-sikapan kong gampanan ‘yung role ng mabuti. I really worked hard for it. Ibinuhos ko ang sarili ko doon sa role. I believe na kung nasaan man ako ngayon, pinag-hirapan ko ‘yon.”

The woman speaks the truth. Her audition tape for Marimar is still on Youtube, if you want to see for yourself. Perhaps the most astounding quality about her in that tape is the lack of rawness. More often than not, if you look up old photos and videos of stars today, you’ll notice something missing. Either their makeup isn’t right, there’s still some weight to be lost or a certain measure of lingering self-doubt. Whatever it is, what industry people call “star quality” isn’t there yet. In Marian’s case, however, she was the complete package: She had the looks, the talent, the moves, and most noticeably, the appeal. Watch as she brings the buxom Thalia’s moves as Marimar back to life and the way she stood her ground while throwing lines with one of the industry’s long-time leading men, her current beau, Dingdong Dantes. There wasn’t a slight instance of inhibition or hesitance; she was ready for stardom.

The woman everyone loves to hate: Marian possesses one of the sweetest faces in the industry, which belies her fieriness when the gossip surrounding her gets ugly.

The very fact that she was hailed as GMA’s newest star in as little as two years in the industry while steadily earning her crown as her studio’s Primetime Queen within the next four years is uncanny. But as quickly her ascendance to fame occurred, so did the onset of haterade. From the beginning of her career, there almost hasn’t been a time when Marian wasn’t entangled in some sort of mess. She could give Gretchen Barretto a run for her money. A number of these controversies include being the called third party in Karylle and Dingdong’s dissolved relationship (but is there an actress who hasn’t been labelled as the “third party”? Anyway, she was absolved by Karylle herself.). Another issue involved having a video uploaded on Youtube of her losing her cool and telling off a male onlooker who was rude to her on the set of Dyesebel (hey, she’s a fiery Caviteña).

Perhaps the worst and most absurd instance was when she supposedly locked actress Bela Padilla in a bathroom because Bela’s romantic scenes with Dingdong in the TV show Endless Love made her jealous (the issue was resolved behind closed doors, but it’s hard to believe that any sane person would do that). The most recent issue is a reported feud between her and co-Temptation Island lead, Heart Evangelista, which supposedly involved Heart’s mom telling Marian to stay away from her daughter. The report is surprising considering the talk that it was Marian who convinced Heart to join the cast in the first place, but with Heart all the way in Brazil now, resolutions might have to wait.

In all the controversy hounding her throughout her entire career, the running theme, curiously, is that Marian is always portrayed as the aggressor. As such, she’s a potential PR nightmare and this type of thing never usually works out for any burgeoning or reigning artista. Yet somehow, her popularity has never diminished and she’s still never given the dreaded boxed-in kontrabida roles. For the most part, she’s untouchable and that’s one niggling fact that must annoy her aggravators most. If anything, these persistent issues keep Marian interesting and most of all, relatable. After all, it gets tiring to see these actresses pretend that they’re perfect human beings who never lose their tempers, never make mistakes (admittedly, that “Isa po akong Psychology” crack never gets old), never feel pangs of jealousy when your boyfriend has to kiss another actress for a scene. Come on.

We may never know the true character of Marian Rivera or if the invectives hurled at her bear any semblance of truth. All we can say is that she stands alone when it comes to her candidness, refreshing honesty, and willingness to speak her mind, even if it means getting misinterpreted and misunderstood. From the start of her extraordinary career, Marian knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she chose this path six years ago and she’s not about to regret her decision over little more than mud slinging. She took control of an industry known for its volatility and for all her faults, that’s a pretty mean feat — one that deserves some respect. And that’s just something that her haters have to deal with.