Starting again from scratch may not be the most desirable thing, especially when one has had a pretty smooth career. Nevertheless, high-profile Filipino-Argentinian actress Maria Chantal Videla ventured into the world of K-pop and debuted as a member of rookie girl group Lapillus in June 2022, with her new name, Chanty.
When a friend of her dad’s first made her an offer to go to Korea and join a new K-pop girl group, the 20-year-old was hesitant. She loved working in the Philippines where she had been successfully expanding her repertoire by appearing on several popular TV shows and movies like “Spirits: Reawaken” (2018), “Familia Blondina” (2019) and “Starla” (2019-20). She had her family and friends there, too.
For her, it was a big risk to go back to zero and start all over again in a foreign country, which has a different culture and lifestyle. In the end, however, she opted to take on a new challenge and headed for Seoul in 2021.
“What if I can do more? I just could not stop thinking about that,” Chanty told The Korea Times during a recent interview at a studio in central Seoul. “As a fan of K-pop and K-dramas, I thought I was given a rare opportunity. So I talked with my parents and in the end, I decided to grab this chance and see how it goes. They told me I can just come back if it does not go well and that I will still learn many things and use that knowledge somewhere else even if I do not succeed.”
source: koreatimes
