His performance in the GMA telesine Kasangga (where he played marked roles in four episodes) also merited him a Best Actor in a Single Performance nomination from the recently-concluded Star Awards for TV.
For this, Wendell says he has director Maryo J. de los Reyes to thank. As early as the 1990s, the award-winning director saw the intensity in those piercing eyes and transformed the former teen actor into a performer with depth in Kabilin-bilinan ni Lola.
"Wendell has gone through a marvelous transformation as a serious actor with a remarkable amount of daring and intensity," observes De los Reyes, who directs Wendell in World Arts Cinema’s Bedtime Stories.
The director saw how Wendell’s eyes shifted, how his body moved into the most sinister, shadowy way as a killer and rapist addicted to Ecstasy (also the title of the episode he stars in) in the upcoming sex trilogy.
"I expect moviegoers who come out of the theaters feeling angry at me," he reveals. The favorite leading men of new bombshells like Maui Taylor (as the guy who turned the sex nymphet from innocent student to woman of the world in Gamitan) and Assunta de Rossi (Hubog) when they were just starting out can be so immersed in his job, he takes it with him even when he goes home to Parañaque.
"When my character drowns in self-pity, for instance, I feel really down when I get home," he admits.
But down is hardly the way to describe Wendell’s career these days. His is in the enviable position of swinging from serious to light in Regal Films’ Bakit, Papa with Rochelle Pangilinan of The Sex Bomb Dancers.
He trades comic punchlines with the cast of GMA 7’s Bubble Gang, where he is cast with Ara Mina, his co-star in Regal Films’ soon-to-be-shown Two Timer.
While Wendell is mum about rumors linking him to Ara, he vehemently denies causing the breakup between Pia Pilapil and former husband Gerry Gonzalo "I don’t know how that rumor started," muses Wendell. "All I know is that Pia and I played at the recent Star Olympics with Eric Fructuoso, who also lives in Parañaque. I never even dated Pia."
The closest he got to her, claims Wendell, was living in the same vicinity (Parañaque) where her family resides.
The guy is adamant about having nothing to do with Pia romantically since he knows "causing breakup of a family is bad."
To prove his point, Wendell says he got to know Pia only recently, and that’s two years after her marriage was annulled.
If you take this to mean Wendell’s career will be quiet and uneventful from hereon, you’re wrong. The guy touted as the next Jomari Yllana (because of that to-do-die for body which sees him romancing all those sexy stars on screen) is in good hands. Douglas Quijano is his manager. He and Wendell are scrutinizing every offer. They have turned down those that cast Wendell only in decorative roles, and are gunning for the ones which will mold him into a character actor of substance.
Douglas knows his 24-year-old ward is aiming for the sky, no less. Wendell has expressed his wish to be paired with the likes of Vilma Santos, Sharon Cuneta and Maricel Soriano.
At the rate things are going his way, who knows? Wendell might yet see his biggest dream come true.