News is rife of celebrity children behaving badly, but Juliana Gomez appears to have her feet on the ground. She joked with her team at the Lifestyle Asia cover shoot, and gamely tried on the Rajo Laurel gowns lined up for the day’s session. She was easy and comfortable with the flurry of activities attendant to the pre-shoot hair styling and make-up. When the glam team was done, she was ready for photographer Yukie Sarto.
A Childhood in Showbiz
“I had a really normal childhood,” she says. “I was not brought up to believe that I should be treated differently. But it was fun because I grew up around people who I would see on TV and movies. I thought that was normal because when I’d meet and talk to them, they were real and they were normal. In my mind, they were just my parents’ friends.”
Juliana never took stock of the extra attention she was given. “If there was anything I wondered about, it was that most everywhere I went, people would come up to say hi, followed by “Ang laki mo na, nakita kita nung baby ka pa!” she remembers. “I never really asked my parents about it. My dad instilled in me to always be nice to people, even when strangers say hi.”
As a child, Juliana was an introvert, although now she says she is the complete opposite. Show business didn’t seem particularly appealing to her back then, but as she dips her toes in now and then, she finds herself thankful for the direction her parents have given her. “My parents have never put me in a box or told me that I should only follow one particular dream and throw away the others. They were always very encouraging [on exploring] how the world was so big and how there are so many possibilities and how I should not be tied down to just one interest.” She says the best advice from them was “I have to give it my all and always make it count.”
Juliana’s friends today are still her friends in childhood, most of them being the children of other movie and TV personalities. “I come off as someone who is really quiet and timid but when I’m with my friends, I am completely different,” she says. “I’m loud and I’m always singing or dancing or joking around whenever I’m with them.”
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Aspiring for the National Team
Juliana, who debuted this week, reflects wisely on her teenage years, which she says wasn’t that much different from everyone else. “I’ve had a very normal childhood. I probably had the earliest curfew compared to the rest of my friends but that’s it really,” she says
Growing up in the age of social media, she finds it easy to ignore the simultaneous fawning and negativity that comes with sharing life on a public platform. “I don’t waste any energy on internet trolls, which is probably why I don’t get affected,” she says. “To me, there isn’t any pressure to be anyone or anything else other than myself.”
Right now, she is focused on school and her favorite sport, volleyball. “It’s a lot to balance, but my time management skills have gotten better,” she says, laughing. She considers her goals big and small. “I hope to be able to make it to the national team, and far off in the future, I would like to find myself in a profession/job that makes me happy. I can’t gauge success based on financial stability alone because to me, that isn’t the be all and end all.”
Read the full cover story of Juliana Gomez and Annika Prieto Valdes in Lifestyle Asia’s September 2018 Edition, titled the Red Charity Gala Issue. Buy the issue directly from us and have it delivered to your doorstop by sending us a private message on our Instagram account @lifestyle_asia or Facebook page. The September issue is also available in your nearest bookstore or download the FLIP100 app for a digital version.
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SHOOT CREDITS:
Photography by Yukie Sarto
Gowns by Rajo Laurel
Makeup by Jason Delos Reyes for NARS Cosmetics and Luisa Crespo
Hair by Mark Rosales and Marvin Lee Estaquio
Special thanks to Margarita Fores
Shot on location at Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Quezon City
