Every year, Esquire Philippines presents Man at His Best, the local iteration of a global signature event where we celebrate extraordinary Filipino men and women reshaping society as we know it. These are the dreamers and doers who have made a profound impact on the Filipino's way of life, who are using their talents and skills to make something of themselves and inspire the rest of us to do better with our lives.
This year, we're honoring nine mavericks and legends in film, music, business, politics, and entertainment. Despite coming from disparate fields and industries, they all have one thing in common: all of them exemplify what it means to be a Man at His Best.
ALSO READ: Esquire Philippines Honors 9 Heroes and Mavericks at the 2024 Man at His Best Awards
Meet Esquire Philippines' Actress of the Year, Marian Rivera
Marian Rivera is having a very interesting year.
During an interview at the lavish Presidential Suite of The Peninsula Manila in Makati, she is characteristically Marian Rivera: professional (maybe even slightly intimidating, if you are not used to her workplace demeanor); her movement measured and hurried (she is, after all, very busy these days); but also pleasant and funny, especially when the moment needs a bit of levity, armed with observational quips that reveal that she actually pays attention to people around her.
"So kayo 'yung hinihintay namin [dahil] sa coffee niyo,' she jokingly told his crew over the whirring of the espresso machine. Everyone laughed, the low hum stopped, and then we started rolling. "I'm okay, and I'm always happy," Marian says when asked how she was doing.
And yet, it is also evident that Marian is on a high. It is easy to assume why. Her film Balota, for which she won the 2024 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival Best Actress award in August, had just opened in theaters to encouraging audience reviews and box office receipts.
In Balota (written and directed by Kip Oebanda), Marian plays Emmy, a public school teacher who finds her and her son's life in danger as she protects the vote that will decide the result of her town's highly contested elections. It is political satire, a dark comedy with camp tendencies (in one scene, Marian figures in a fight against Nico Antonio's Migs with a ballot box as her weapon). More importantly, it puts Marian front and center of a film with a very overt political stance and message.
She was ready to say no to the role, Marian shares. But the material and Kip's reason for wanting her to start in the movie eventually made her say yes.
"Sabi niya [Kip], kailangan ko ng karakter ni teacher Emmy na mukhang ikaw. Sabi ko, 'Ano po 'yung mukhang ako?' Na parang very transparent, mapagmahal, pero palaban," she says.
Marian shares of the film's theatrical run: "Hindi ko in-expect na ilalabas siya nationwide. At ang ganda nun, kasi 'yung mensahe ng Balota, ang daming gustong sabihin na sana mas maraming makapanood. Especially natataon na malapit na naman ang election natin."
The film would eventually run in cinemas for over four weeks, likely making it one of the more successful nationwide releases for a Cinemalaya film. Not many have noted that Balota is Marian's first solo film headliner since 2010.
On Marian: Blazer by The Row, vest by Acheval Pampa, shoes by Saint Laurent, necklace by Jul B. Dizon
For any other actor, this would already be a marquee achievement in itself. But for Marian, it simply feels like the inevitable continuation of a long-overdue showbiz winning streak.
After a successful box office run at the 2023 Metro Manila Film Festival, Rewind,where Marian and husband Dingdong Dantes play a married couple whose relationship is put to the test by (among other things) tragedy and time travel, became the highest-grossing Filipino film of all time with a reported P1.2 billion ticket sales gross. That Rewind managed this at a time when local films were having difficulty breaching the P100 million box office line is an achievement that's hard to dismiss (it is also the first local film to gross more than P900 million; previous titleholder, the 2019 romantic drama Hello, Love, Goodbye, reportedly peaked at P880 million).
What's even harder to dismiss is Marian's one-two punch with Rewind and Balota. It's a career-high for the actress, prompting many showbiz observers and pundits to refer to this as her "second prime," proof to naysayers who have dismissed her as a one-dimensional soap opera actress.
To call this a second wind for the actress, however, feels dismissive of the power of Marian Rivera. This isn't a second wind; this isn't her second prime.
This is Marian Rivera simply being Marian Rivera.
