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“I’m on the rise right before their eyes.”
Rise | Belle Mariano
If there would be one line to perfectly describe her journey, it would be this line from the song entitled, “Rise”; a song by one of the biggest teen stars of this generation, Belle Mariano. Apart from being the “Newest Gen Z It-Girl,” Mariano is also one half of an extremely popular loveteam from ABS-CBN called, “DonBelle”; Mariano and her on-screen partner Donny Pangilinan are dubbed as New Generation Phenomenal Loveteam. The pair-up was first introduced to the people after they were revealed as the main characters for the network’s adaptation of one of the most popular Wattpad stories in the country – He’s Into Her.
That was three years ago and the pair-up has become more successful ever since. The loveteam bagged various recognitions, successful projects, awards, songs, and endorsements under their name, both as a pair and individually. Some would even say that they’re one of the most influential young adults of this generation.
Photo from: Belle Mariano | Instagram
But before all this jazz about stardom and being in the spotlight, Belle Mariano was once just a little girl who had big dreams. Belinda A. Mariano, popularly known as Belle Mariano, was born on June 10, 2002, as the eldest of 5 children to Katrina Mariano and Michael Mariano. At just three years old, Belle had already developed a fondness for performing for an audience; she enjoyed singing and dancing in front of her family and other relatives. She would even act in front of the mirror and just enjoyed entertaining her family.
Photo from: Belle Mariano Article Bio
It was when she turned nine years old that she had the chance to fulfill this dream of hers. After auditioning for various commercials, Belle Mariano scored her first commercial in 2012 for the milk drink Bear Brand. She did a few more commercials and auditions until she landed the role of young Bianca in the hit KathNiel teleserye, “Princess and I.” Bianca was the older sister of Mikay, played by Kathryn Bernardo. In this project was where she met and became friends with Casey da Silva who played the role of young Mikay.
Eventually, this friendship would lead her one step closer to her dreams. Da Silva was then a regular cast member of the kiddie gag show, “Goin’ Bulilit”. Belle Mariano accompanied her one Saturday morning for a shoot where she was noticed by one of the directors – Edgar “Bobot” Mortiz. She was asked to join one of the skits as a cameo, which she gladly agreed to. She was surprised when she was called back the following weeks to join the shoot; she, later on, became a regular cast member in the show and that is when her journey as a child actress began.
Photos from: Belle Mariano | Instagram
In the same year, she got cast as one of the lead roles in the melodrama “Lorenzo’s Time” alongside another talented child star, Zaijian Jaranilla. Belle Mariano played the role of young Katkat Gonzales, later played by Carmina Villaroel, and the role of Charity “Charie” Gonzales – Katkat’s daughter. This role was one of her most memorable as the show also received high viewership ratings from the people. Many remembered her as the adorable little girl who portrayed two different roles effectively.
After her participation in the drama, Belle got various roles in the drama anthology show Maalaala Mo Kaya. From the year 2012 to 2013, she already had seven different appearances in the said drama anthology. In 2013, she also got minor roles in the fantasy series Wansapanataym as Leklek and in the superhero series Juan Dela Cruz, where she played the role of young Mira. For the next two years, she continued to get roles in different shows like Maalaala Mo Kaya, On The Wings of Love, Nathaniel, Hawak Kamay, and one of the longest-running action dramas, Ang Probinsyano.
For three years, Belle Mariano was a regular member of Goin’ Bulilit until she “graduated” in 2015. After her stint in the kiddie show, she was cast in Ang Probinsyano as Rachel Tuazon – daughter of Tomas Tuazon and Verna Tuazon, played by Albert Martinez and Agot Isidro. Despite only being in the show for one year, her performance in the drama garnered praise from fans of the show. In that same year, she also appeared in You’re My Home where she played the role of young Grace: the eldest daughter of Gabriel and Marian Fontanilla played by Richard Gomez and Dawn Zulueta.
Many admired how she could keep up in terms of acting with big names like Arjo Atayde, Albert Martinez, Agot Isidro, Eddie Garcia, Dawn Zulueta, and Richard Gomez. This is just the start of how Belle slowly cemented herself as a talented young actress for drama roles. In the next four years, she continued getting roles in Maalaala Mo Kaya, Ipaglaban Mo, Pasion de Amor, La Luna Sangre, Can’t Help Falling In Love, Love You To The Stars and Back, Bagani, Playhouse, Kadenang Ginto, Alamat ng Ano, and Story of My Life where she starred alongside different names in the industry.
Although most of her roles in the dramas, movies, and series were just minor characters Belle always made sure to give her best despite having doubts about herself throughout these years. She shared in one interview that after graduating from Goin’ Bulilit, she struggled with insecurities and went through an awkward phase where she felt like she wasn’t happy with herself.
She also revealed that there was a time when she thought of just giving up this showbiz dream of hers because she felt like it wasn’t for her; but with the support and love from her family, most especially her mom, Belle Mariano continued to work hard. She attended shoots, workshops, and auditions while also maintaining good academic performance. In 2019, she graduated high school at Divine Angels Montessori of Cainta, Inc. where she was the Class Valedictorian.
Other than her high school graduation, she also reached different milestones in her career as an actress in 2019. In May, she was launched as a part of the Star Magic Circle Batch 2019 alongside other young talents who would soon make their own names in the industry. She starred in Zaijian Jaranilla’s iWant series Story of My Life, which aired in December of that same year. But the biggest milestone, and also the challenge of her acting career, would be when the cast reveal for He’s Into Her series adaptation happened.
On November 7, 2019, the cast for this highly-anticipated adaptation was revealed wherein Belle Mariano was one of the lead characters alongside Donny Pangilian. And compared to the warm responses and welcome to the other cast of the show, what Belle received was doubt, hate, and a tremendous amount of bashing. The character that Belle portrayed was Maxpein Zin del Valle, the female lead of the hit Wattpad story He’s Into Her.
Photo from: Belle Mariano Star Cinema
This story is one of the most read and most loved stories on its platform for its unique characters, exciting plot twists, and exceptional writing and dialogue. Maxpein’s character was a definite fan favorite for she was not a typical damsel-in-distress in high school love stories. Maxpein was a strong, stoic, boyish, and intimidating kind of girl who never backs down from a fight. For the many fans of the book, Belle wasn’t the right choice for the role. Many claimed that she was too short, too soft-looking, and too young for it. It didn’t help that the fan’s choice for Maxpein’s portrayer was also part of the cast. Belle was constantly compared to her. They kept pointing out how Belle didn’t deserve the role, how she wasn’t who they had in mind, and how they thought that she would just ruin the character they loved.
Belle knew all of it. She has read the tweets, the comments, and the messages that shared the same disappointment over her character in the story. She admitted to being hurt by the amount of hate she got from the people and she started to doubt if the role was really for her. Thankfully, she was surrounded by people who loved her and believed in her. Director Chad Vidanes, who was the director of the show, helped Belle by encouraging her to do her best because he, as a director, knows what Belle can do and the potential she has in portraying the character. The cast, the production staff, and even the author of the story showed support for her as Maxpein and she was determined to do her best. However, two unfortunate things happened when they were just beginning to shoot the series: COVID-19 hit the country followed by ABS-CBN’s shutdown.
The shooting for the show came to a stop. Many people, including the artists, were saddened by the change of events. The casts shared that they weren’t sure if the show would be pushed through, even the fans wondered what would happen now that the network has shut down. But true enough, there is always a rainbow after the rain. December 7, 2020, they resumed shooting for the series, prior to the lock-in taping for He’s Into Her, Belle was also fresh from another lock-in taping for the movie Four Sisters Before the Wedding – a prequel to the 2013 blockbuster movie Four Sisters And a Wedding. Belle got her first lead role in this movie where she played Gabriela “Gabbie” Salazar, which was originally played by Shaina Magdayao. Thankfully, she received great reviews for her portrayal of the character but there were still doubts about her playing the role of Maxpein.
Going back to He’s Into Her, after a few months of lock-in taping and shooting for promotions, the time for the show to air finally arrived. In May 2021, the iWant TFC application went down. According to ABS-CBN’s Head of Digital Group Mr. Eugenio Manuel “Jamie” Lopez, the app went from catering to 22,000 concurrent users to more than 100,000 in a span of 30 to 90 seconds.
The overwhelming support and anticipation from fans of the books, artists, and the series caused the iWant TFC to crash, and even the artists and staff had a hard time watching the first episode of the series. That was just the start of the breakout success of the series. From the first episode of season one until the last, the rating for the show remained high. It was consistently on iWant TFC’s Top 10 shows throughout the duration of its showing, even beating Ang Probinsyano.
The many people who once doubted Belle as Maxpein were all left in awe after watching her performance for the show. She proved the haters wrong. Even Belle herself couldn’t believe that the hate she once received would turn into love. Judging by the feedback of the masses to the series and the overwhelming support it received, Belle considers He’s Into Her as her biggest break. She wasn’t wrong. After the success of this show, which was also loved by international fans, especially from Indonesia, they were cleared for a second season and she even got another lead role in a movie. This time, she was with Donny Pangilinan for the movie Love is Color Blind.
Photo from: Belle Mariano – Star Cinema
The movie was also another blockbuster hit where people laughed, gushed, and cried because of the plot of the story that trended among many people. While preparing for the second season, Belle was also busy with her appearance in another iWant series entitled Click, Like, Share 3. She was also busy with her career as a singer preparing for her first ever digital concert entitled “daylight,” which is also the name of her album that features seven tracks including the official soundtrack for He’s Into Her entitled ‘Sigurado’ and the official soundtrack for Love Is Color Blind entitled ‘For Your Eyes Only’; both of which garnered millions of streams in Spotify. After months of preparation, Belle
Belle started the year 2022 with another milestone following the success of her digital concert; her blessings just poured more from then.
She was named one of Preview Magazine’s 50 Most Influential People. She also won multiple awards from the 7th Push Awards and Village Pipol Choice Awards alongside Donny Pangilinan for their pair-up. Aside from these loveteam awards from VP Choice Awards, she also got two individual awards as Female Promising Star of the Year as well as the Movie Actress of the year for their hit movie Love Is Color Blind.
She’s already won many awards throughout the span of two years, both in music and acting, but her biggest achievement so far was when she made history as the first-ever Kapamilya, Filipina, and also the youngest recipient of the Outstanding Asian Star Award in the prestigious Seoul International Drama Awards (SDA) 2022. This is an annual award ceremony based in South Korea, which honors excellence in television drama productions worldwide. On the 22nd day of September, Belle flew to South Korea to personally receive the award for her exemplary performance in He’s Into Her at the KBS Hall in Seoul. She won alongside actors from different countries such as Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and China. In her speech, she honored and mentioned the whole production team for the series, Maxinejiji – the author of the books, which the adaptation was taken from, her partner – Donny Pangilinan, and her family.
Photos from: Belle Mariano | Instagram
This win for Belle wasn’t just her win alone. It was also for the Philippines as she made many proud with how she represented the country in an international award-giving body. She made countless headlines and articles from different newspapers and entertainment sites. Indeed, Belle Mariano is on the rise right before our eyes. Not just her fans, but many viewers were able to witness how she grew from an underrated, but talented young actress to one of the biggest names in the industry. From having barely thousands of fans on her official accounts she now boasts 679.8 thousand followers on Twitter, 3.4 million followers on Facebook, 2.1 million followers on Instagram, 824.7 thousand followers on TikTok, and more than 283 thousand subscribers on her newly launched Youtube channel.
Photo from: Belle Mariano | Instagram
Now, Belle Mariano is busy with preparation for her upcoming movie with Donny Pangilinan entitled An Inconvenient Love which will be showing in cinemas on November 23, 2022. This movie will be Star Cinema’s big-screen comeback and many fans are highly anticipating another blockbuster hit.
