Kapuso star steps it up with daring roles on both big and small screens

BELA Padilla: Funny, kooky

GMA 7 young star Bela Padilla is certain that she won’t get typecast playing mean girls onscreen.

She shuttles between martyr (“Machete”) and villainess (“Sisid”) roles on the small screen quite effortlessly, she says.

Furthermore, she gets to tackle a complex character in her latest afternoon soap opera, “Hiram na Puso.”

‘Zomba’ fan

“In our show, there’s no clear-cut kontrabida,” she points out. “All the characters are depicted as normal people who have positive and negative traits. As in real life, things are not just black and white … but are in all shades of gray.”

Coincidentally, Bela is one of the stars in GMA Films’ romantic comedy “My Kontrabida Girl,” top-billed by Aljur Abrenica and Rhian Ramos, and directed by Jade Castro.

“I play one of Aljur’s girlfriends,” she quips.

She was excited to work with Jade, she says; she’s a fan of his hit comedy, “Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington.”

During the workshop held for the cast, Bela managed to impress the indie filmmaker, who relates, “She is funny and smart. She plays a kooky character and shows a lot of promise.”

Bela is determined to come into her own—in spite of (also because of) the fact that she comes from a celebrated show biz clan.

Daring darling

One sure sign of the girl’s daring is her decision to pose in a swimsuit for a men’s magazine that resulted in a tsunami of controversies. (Critics deemed the original cover “racist” because it showed off alabaster-skinned Bela with dark-skinned models.)

Although she told her mom about the pictorial, she wasn’t able to inform her grandmother Eva Cariño beforehand. “When she found out about it, Mama Eva was okay with it. My aunts  found it tasteful,” she recounts.

Helpful tips

The resulting intrigue has taught her “to respect other people’s opinions and feelings.”

She says she didn’t have time to prepare for the sexy shoot. “I went jogging three nights before the pictorial. It helped that I had been going to the gym long before that.”

She has been working out diligently since winning the Media’s Darling and Miss Friendship titles at the Asian Super Model tilt last year in China.

“I advise this year’s Filipina contestant to enjoy herself,” Bela says. “I did not expect to win; I just had fun.”