Christian Bautista Denies Having A Rift With Mark Bautista Over 'With A Smile'

CHRISTIAN BAUTISTA plays his first lead role in a romantic-comedy soap in GMA-7’s “With a Smile”. His last soap was “Princess and I” on ABS-CBN where he played a supporting role. “With a Smile” is not an afternoon soap as earlier reported. It will be shown in the morning, but it’ll not compete with the hit “Be Careful with My Heart” as it’ll be shown earlier at 10:15 AM, after Chef Boy Logro’s cooking show and before Ryzza Mae Dizon’s talk show.

Is it true Mark Bautista is sore at Christian because “With a Smile” is meant for him but Christian eventually took his place?

GMA exec Cheryl Sy says this isn’t true. “The project is really meant for Christian. Viewers are looking for something light in the morning. Dati, puro Koreanovela ang pinalalabas namin in this slot. Now that we’re having a local show, we’re hoping it’ll make its mark in our morning programming.”

Christian denies he has a gap with Mark. “It’s not true because we’re friends way back in ‘ASAP’ sa ABS. We’re together again in the new GMA Sunday show, ‘Sunday All Stars’, at wala kaming problema at all. I’m happy to do ‘With a Smile’ with Andrea Torres and Mikael Daez. Maganda ang samahan namin sa taping. I also get to sing the show’s theme song, ‘Ngiti’.”

“With a Smile” signals the return of Director Louie Ignacio to megging soap. He was assigned to do mostly musical variety shows and talk shows after helming “I Luv New York” several years ago. “I want to thank AVP Lilybeth Rasonable for bringing me back to soaps. Na-miss ko rin talaga ito and I’m thankful na very professional ang stars namin in ‘With a Smile’ na sina Christian, Andrea and Mikael. Three weeks na kami into taping and they’re all very good, everything’s going on smoothly.”

“With a Smile” will start brightening up your mornings this coming Monday so don’t miss the pilot episode that introduces the character of Isay (Andrea) who’ll be torn between Aston (Christian) and Dean (Mikael).