How motherhood helped Janella Salvador become a better actress

Janella Salvador with baby Jude

“I didn’t have to study it to be one. My mother’s instinct just came naturally,” declared actress Janella Salvador, who recently returned to show biz after giving birth to Jude Trevor, her first son with partner Markus Patterson.

“Motherhood has changed my perspective in life. I’m super hands-on with Jude. If I can do it, I want to be the one to do it for him. I want everything to have my personal touch because I’m very OC (obsessive-compulsive or overanxious),” said the 23-year-old.

“When it came to choosing his godparents, I personally called all of them. I told them that they should be able to leave a mark in Jude’s life,” she told reporters during a virtual meeting to promote her latest digital series “Click, Like, Share 2.” Among Jude’s godparents are Liza Soberano, Erich Gonzales, Kyle Echarri and Inigo Pascual. Worried

Now that Janella is going back to acting, she confessed to feeling worried about having to leave Jude at home when she finally goes inside her taping bubble for a teleserye soon. “I’m feeling nervous about it. For ‘Click, Like and Share,’ I only had to shoot for one whole day, and I really missed Jude then. What more if I have to leave him for three whole weeks? I will have a hard time, for sure. It’s going to be tough, but I have to do it,” she said.

Janella added that being a mom has helped her as an actress in terms of giving her acting more depth. “I am now able to make the emotions needed in a particular scene come out more quickly. I feel that I now have a purpose. I now appreciate the struggles I’m going through in life. I just think of Jude now and I am already able to feel everything,” she observed.

When asked how she is preparing for her return to the biz, Janella replied: “First of all, I’m super excited to be back. I’m preparing myself mentally since this series is my first acting job after so long. It was not an easy start because my mind is really focused on my son. Physically, I’m still trying to lose more of my pregnancy weight, but I’m almost there.”

Handling comments

She also let on that she will be working on her album, too. “There’s another project coming up but I’m not yet allowed to talk about it. Honestly, since my world currently revolves around Jude, I just want to say that some of his teeth are already coming out,” Janella said, laughing.

Janella was likewise asked how she was able to handle comments about her on social media, both the positive and negative ones. To this, the actress said: “I don’t really handle the negative ones, unless they are really below the belt. I ignore them. I find it too harsh that people base their judgments only on what they see on screen. They don’t really know what’s happening beyond that. For me, whatever negative things they say are irrelevant. As for the positive ones, I’m happy that people still appreciate.”

Only last April, Janella and Markus called out several netizens for making fun of their baby on social media. Janella earlier blocked bashers who criticized her for allegedly trying to keep her pregnancy a secret.

Salvador

The actress said she has also decided to limit Jude’s exposure to social media. “Markus and I plan not to allow Jude access to social media until maybe we can already see that he has reached the right age, that he is already able to understand and is ready for the consequences,” she pointed out. “It’s like you’re exposing your child to the world and the world is so broad— it’s both good and bad. We plan to do this slowly but surely.”

She noticed that social media behavior has changed so much through the years. “When I was just starting in show biz, I would observe people around me because I still didn’t know how to behave like a celebrity yet. I noticed that a lot of them tried to pressure me into being more active in posting on social media. I thought I should be like them, too. But as the years went by, I realized that there’s really no right way to use your social media accounts. I learned that I can share anything I want but I really just can’t be too active. I just share what I think are milestones or important events in my life. I treat posting on social media like a postcard. I update people with what’s happening to me.”

However, as an effect of the pandemic, Janella said social media now has more significant uses. “Aside from the fact that you can now connect with other people using it, and you can also express yourself artistically through your posts. The pandemic has opened more work opportunities for people, particularly those who lost their jobs as a result of the lockdowns. They can now sell stuff online until their industry reopens.”

Salvador

The fourth episode of “Click, Like and Share 2” is titled “Barter.” It features Janella as Janice, who became the sole provider of her younger sister after the death of their mother. To make ends meet, Janice resorts to selling defective appliances online, which will lead to the accidental death of a customer and a series of hauntings that will ruin her life forever.

The series, which has been streaming since early September, is directed by Emmanuel Palo and produced by iWantTFC and ABS-CBN Entertainment in association with Dreamscape Entertainment and KreativDen. INQ