A-List circle of beauty, body & brains

They are the 10 inaugural talents of the newly-formed AAA (A-List Artists Agency) in partnership with Viva Group of Companies. Which one will stardom bless?

They’re sexy, stylish and smart – a circle of 10 talents for the modern audience that prefers stars to be a complete package of beauty, body and brains.

They’re the inaugural talents of A-List Artists Agency (AAA), a new boutique management house specializing in gorgeous, multi-faceted and multi-talented men and women for movies, TV, advertising, fashion and sports. It is a partnership of Vic del Rosario’s Viva group and Jojie Dingcong’s JLD Management.

Meet them:

• Katarina Rodriguez, 21, who went into the second season of Asia’s Next Top Model (ANTM) with absolutely zero previous experience, emerging third placer. She is a Philosophy & Business Management senior at the De La Salle University.

Naturally athletic, Katarina grew up in the US. She stands 5’7”and is a member of the university varsity women’s Track & Field team for which she used to run competitively.

Katarina’s business side is also serving her career plans. She recently launched a personal video blog, XXX, where she documents her various projects and activities covering fashion, food and fun. The purpose is to keep the fans that she has made from ANTM hooked on her and also to gain new ones.

• Edward Mendez, 6’1”, has been a sought-after commercial and ramp model for a few years now, with high-profile appearances in the premiere editions of the annual Bench underwear show and the Cosmo Bachelors list. He starred with Ai-Ai delas Alas and Marian Rivera as a mysterious martial arts guru in the fantasy-comedy Kung Fu Divas.

Born in the Philippines and raised in the US, Edward comes from a family of doctors. A Sports Science graduate from the University of Maryland, he may not have become a doctor like his elders but he has fashioned himself into someone who is just as helpful and perhaps even more inspiring — a health and fitness guru who has helped the likes of Martin Nievera and Ces Drilon achieve their ideal bodies.

Edward has written a book titled Your Dream Body Come True which is about a fitness program centered on the radical “Eat More, Exercise Less” idea that Edward himself developed from 10 years of studies and experience as a health and fitness enthusiast.

• Gerard Garcia, a six-footer, is pure Filipino who was born and raised in Australia where he learned to be independent as early as high school. After college, he started his professional career as a ramp and commercial model in several countries, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, New York and Brazil.

After three years, he got a bit bored with modeling and wanted a new challenge. So he decided to come home to try his luck as an actor. He has since been based in Manila working not just as an actor but also as a model. He has also ventured into entrepreneurship with his own businesses.

Among Gerard’s acting credits are TV5’s fantaserye Enchanted Garden and the recent dramatic-thriller series Jasmine.

In between acting projects, Gerard is kept busy with his business endeavors, one of them XXX which is a full-service health and fitness firm that started operations just recently, and the other is www.surfingphilippines.com, a website that he created to promote surf tourism in the Philippines and create a big surfing community in the country.

• John James Uy is an actor, model and host who is often described in write-ups as “casual,” “laid-back,” “cool,” “effortlessly sexy” and “real.” Born and raised in the US, he came in the mid-2000s for a vacation which turned into a permanent stay when modeling projects quickly landed on his lap. He has since transitioned to hosting and acting, with roles in several teleseryes.

His biggest roles so far were in the adult drama Rigodon directed by Erik Matti and the political satire Juana Change: The Movie.

• Anton Mercado, 21, was a finalist at the recently-concluded MTV VJ Hunt of MTV Pinoy where he won the People’s Choice special award. Although a showbiz newbie, he is surrounded by actors and actresses who are close to his family, including Liezl Martinez who is a very good friend of his mother. He has also acted in several student films in Ateneo where he took up Management.

Even before graduating this year, Anton has already found success as a young entrepreneur. Together with his classmates, he put up a cardboard furniture business in 2013 that continues to do well. In fact, the enterprise debuted in last year’s Manila FAME, one of the longest-running trade shows in the Asia-Pacific featuring the latest Philippine-made creations from artisans and manufacturers, and is the only trade event in the country approved by UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry.

• Markee Mercado, 20, is Anton’s younger brother. He is currently a Management senior in Ateneo. Like Anton, Markee has acted in several student films in school, mostly romance films that capitalize on his boy-next-door good looks. And like Anton, he is not just all good looks. He is a bona fide athlete, having been a member of the Ateneo high school varsity basketball team that won a championship at the UAAP. He has continued playing in college and is currently a member of the Ateneo men’s basketball Team B. The difference now that he is in college is that his world has opened up and his sight is no longer just focused on becoming a professional basketball player.
• D.A. Ramsay, 21, is the younger brother of Derek. But he wants to take a different path in showbiz by making a name for himself as a character actor in the league of his favorites Joel Torre and Oscar winner Christophe Waltz. He has a certificate in acting and musical theater from a one-year course that he took at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts in London. He also took a two-year international baccalaureate in theater course in high school at Brent International.

D.A. is also venturing into business. He is assisting his dad in the family’s security systems enterprise that, at 27 years, is actually older than him. In both undertakings, he is banking on his personality as a “put-together, polite, nice gentleman” to take him far.

• Adam Lloyd is a half-Filipino, half-Australian model, fitness trainer and life coach. He has lived most of his life in the Gold Coast where he was born. His first stay in the Philippines was during high school in Baguio. He came back when he was 18 to do some modeling projects in Manila then returned to Australia to finish his course on travel and tourism. After that, he studied fitness and personal training and has been a personal trainer in the last six years.

He has done some small acting work in Scooby Doo and other shows in Australia. He returned to Manila last year to pursue his modeling career and one of his first projects was a TV commercial starring Lea Salonga.

• Marco Meily, 18, shares almost the exact same name with his uncle, multi-awarded director Mark Meily. That’s the only link to local tinseltown for this showbiz neophyte who was born and raised in New York. He has lived most of his life in the US, save for the two years he stayed in Manila when he was five to seven years old.

He moved back to the country last year. He is currently enrolled at the International School at the Bonifacio Global City where he is in fourth year high school. He is quite active in sports, particularly lacrosse, which is often described as field hockey. In fact, he started the Manila Lacrosse Club, the first of its kind in the country, with the goal of promoting the sport in the Philippines.

• Nikolo Rodriguez is another teenage showbiz greenhorn. He is the younger brother of Katarina and, just like his sister, he is starting out as a ramp and commercial model. He was born in the Philippines but grew up in Orlando, Florida, until middle school. He returned to Manila last year to continue his studies. He is currently a high school senior at Colegio de San Agustin.

Nikolo is heavily into sports since he was young. In grade school, he was into taekwondo as an influence of his older brother, and then he got into aggressive rollerblading in middle school. He is currently into basketball and he has dreams of making it as a professional player someday. For now, he is focused on his studies and modeling with an eye on transitioning to hosting and acting eventually.

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