Early Christmas bounties for deserving show biz and media stars

Xia Vigor

It’s an early Christmas for some new TV-film stars, who have been happily gifted with significant stellar projects that should boost their stock and clout in seasons to come.

Topping our list of lucky, plucky Santa’s fares is broadcast journalist Atom Araullo, who’s been tapped by no less than master director and future National Artist for Film, Mike de Leon, to act as the protagonist in his next masterpiece, “Citizen Jake.”

De Leon’s casting choice may initially appear to come out of left field, since Atom isn’t principally known to be an actor. But, it’s in fact an inspired brainstorm because, in our view, Araullo is the perfect choice for the plum role, which situates his character in a plot and theme about the brave, new world of “citizen journalists, social media and politics.”

And it isn’t true that Atom is an absolute tyro and tabula rasa when it comes to acting. If memory serves, he’s played sizable roles in theater productions in his youth, so he should more than pass muster.

In fact, Atom and his screen character appear to be such a perfect fit that his first major film role, under De Leon’s visionary mentorship, should be no less than a thespic triumph. Merry Christmas!

The next happy face in our early Yuletide purview belongs to precocious child actress Xia Vigor. She was discovered some years ago on “It’s Showtime’s” “mini-me” celebrity impersonation tilt (as a pint-sized Selena Gomez).

She made such a strong and delightful impression that, for some months, she was given her own portion on the popular noontime show!

Supreme confidence

Xia impressed viewers with her natural behavior, droll ad-libs and amazing precocity, interacting with adults with supreme confidence—and yet still remaining spontaneous and real.

For a long time there, after her noontime show stints, nothing much happened to Xia’s fledgling career, so we fretted that she would end up being overtaken by a lack of consequent events, and end her child talent years with no major achievement to proudly cite.

So, we occasionally wrote about her and her unique gift, to remind producers that the clock was ticking, so they shouldn’t take forever to come up with the stellar showcase she deserved.

Well, Santa must have been listening, because the big, brightly packaged present under Xia’s Christmas tree this season is a new teleserye, “Langit Lupa,” which she topbills as Princess.

Other lead players include Yesha Camile, Jason Abalos, Yam Concepcion, Patrick Garcia and Ellen Adarna. The series also features the love team of Tommy Esguerra and Miho Nishida, and started telecasting Monday.

Here’s hoping that her new daytime drama series (it replaced “Be My Lady”) will win new fans for the pert child star.

A few more months of daily exposure on TV can do wonders for a juvenile talent’s career and popularity, and make it easier for her to eventually just as naturally “graduate” to tween and teen roles.