Actor Andres Muhlach is no stranger to titles like &ldquo;showbusiness royalty&rdquo; or &ldquo;heartthrob&rdquo;. But past the labels, he&rsquo;s a performer who&rsquo;s determined to carve out his own identity &mdash; one that goes beyond his famous last name.

PHOTOGRAPHY Rojan Maguyon
CREATIVE DIRECTION Syazil Abd Rahim
STYLING Ton Lao

He enters the studio with an infectious cheeriness. &ldquo;Hi! Good morning!&rdquo; greets L&rsquo;Officiel Hommes cover boy Andres Muhlach, his voice carrying across the room. After exchanging brief pleasantries, the 24-year-old didn&rsquo;t waste a moment, heading straight to the grooming chair. There&rsquo;s a particular kind of grace in the way he moves &mdash; whether he&rsquo;s taking direction in front of the lens or breaking into a shimmy to the music. He&rsquo;s unassuming, but undeniably present.
Muhlach carries the weight of one of the most illustrious surnames in Philippine entertainment with confidence. Rather than pushing against his legacy, he leans into it, using his family&rsquo;s history as his primary inspiration. &ldquo;I try not to think of it like, I&rsquo;ve never really looked at it that way. Yes, it&rsquo;s my surname, but that&rsquo;s just what it is. If we&rsquo;re going to talk about the legacy or what my family has accomplished, definitely for me, it&rsquo;s really more of an inspiration to do the best I can too,&rdquo; he says.

For him, the iconic status of his parents, Aga Muhlach and Charlene Gonzales-Muhlach, is secondary to their roles as dad and mom. This outlook keeps the pressure at bay, giving Muhlach the space to build his own name in a field his family knows well. Just like any parents with their child, their advice is always welcome since they&rsquo;ve been there and done that. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll ask them for advice about specific things, but their most important advice is to always enjoy the process. Find the fun in what you&rsquo;re doing. Next, be nice to whoever you meet. Showing humility and being able to be nice to the people around you will take you far in life. Third is to just be yourself. I know it sounds tacky because everyone says it, but just be real and truthful with yourself. Don&rsquo;t try to mask your true self,&rdquo; he enumerates.

Fame can be a treacherous current, one that can overwhelm even the most seasoned veterans, let alone a newcomer finding his footing. Muhlach is grateful for the anchors in his life that keep him grounded. &ldquo;What keeps me grounded is my family,&rdquo; he shares. In the Muhlach household, a favorite routine is mornings where the family is complete so they can talk for hours over coffee. &ldquo;I really enjoy those mornings when I wake up and I don&rsquo;t have work. I get to go downstairs and hang out with my parents. We get to update each other on what&rsquo;s going on with life or work. I feel like that&rsquo;s what really grounds me,&rdquo; says Muhlach. He adds that this is something his parents have been doing for years, where they would spend mornings, sometimes until the afternoon, being together just talking.
Beyond family, faith is also important for Muhlach. &ldquo;Another thing that grounds me would have to be God. The biggest thing is prayer. I feel like if you&rsquo;re always in check or in tune with your faith, naturally it will ground you and keep you stable. If you&rsquo;re struggling &nbsp;with things or even if you&rsquo;re flying high and things are going well, it&rsquo;s always nice to say a prayer,&rdquo; he says with conviction.

As Muhlach navigates another long shoot day, with nearly everything catered to him, the contrast to his college days abroad is striking. In Madrid, Spain, where he studied Business Management, he learned to live independently. &ldquo;Living in Madrid taught me a lot of things,&rdquo; he reflects. &ldquo;Of course, the chores and day-to-day errands that come with being independent and in a different country... they taught me how to make better decisions in life, how to really prioritize what needs to be done.&rdquo; The transition from Manila to Madrid &mdash; from a third-world reality to a first-world setting &mdash; gave him perspective. &ldquo;Definitely a lot of differences, but at the end of the day, I&rsquo;m still Filipino,&rdquo; he states. Even in Spain, Muhlach was drawn to his kababayans. &ldquo;I was with so many Filipinos. A lot of OFWs lived in the area where I stayed. I became friends with them and played basketball with them too.&rdquo;
Just like acting, he spoke about his course as something he knew from early on, he was meant to pursue. &ldquo;From a very young age, I was already very business-minded. Every time I hear numbers or percentages, I&rsquo;m already calculating in my head. When I was younger, I made a lemonade stand with my friends. When I got to high school, I started selling sneakers to earn money on the side,&rdquo; Muhlach reminisces.

Mention his twin Atasha, and Muhlach&rsquo;s face lights up. The two have been through a lot together since starting their entertainment careers &mdash; from a fast-food chain ad to the sitcom Da Pers Family with their parents. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very proud of her.&rdquo; he says without hesitation. Atasha &mdash; Tash, as Muhlach calls her &mdash; started her acting career first. He fondly remembers their college days, when they&rsquo;d have phone calls to talk about their future and where their hearts would lead them. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t know what was going to happen or where we were going to end up... and now, we&rsquo;re at this point where we look at each other and talk about it... we&rsquo;re here, grabe, ang galing.&rdquo;
They&rsquo;re living parallel journeys in the same industry, carving individual paths while remaining each other&rsquo;s closest allies. Tash is his equal and their relationship is built on unbreakable trust and loyalty. &ldquo;We level with each other, especially when it comes to work. We learn a lot from each other. She&rsquo;s usually the first one I go to and vice versa because she&rsquo;s my best friend,&rdquo; he admits. He doesn&rsquo;t forget his big brother Luigi, though. As a chef, family man and businessman, Luigi&rsquo;s days are hectic and time is precious. &ldquo;I love that guy... and the times we get to see each other as a family, we always have fun. We play golf and have dinners together,&rdquo; Muhlach reveals.

There are two main projects that Muhlach is highly involved in at the moment: the teen romcom series Ang Mutya ng Section E and Bagets: The Musical, the stage adaptation of the movie &mdash; both of which are challenging for the young actor in different ways.
In Ang Mutya ng Section E, Muhlach plays Mark Kiefer Watson, a hot-headed class president with a penchant for violence, especially toward those who mess with his circle. &ldquo;I definitely don&rsquo;t resonate with the whole bullying and bad boy type of thing, especially the leather jacket. Definitely not. I&rsquo;m not into leather jackets,&rdquo; Muhlach admits with a laugh. However, it&rsquo;s the caring aspect of his character that he relates to.
In Bagets: The Musical, he plays Adie, a role his father played in the &rsquo;80s movie version. Despite the inevitable comparisons, Muhlach didn&rsquo;t worry because he had his own reasons for saying &ldquo;yes&rdquo; to the project. &ldquo;It really stems from the idea or the fact that I wanted to improve my craft. Bago pa rin ako sa industry and I&rsquo;m still learning things as I go&hellip; if I get it done and get through it, then I&rsquo;ll learn a lot more. It was really for self-improvement,&rdquo; he shares.
He has the utmost respect for his cast members, particularly gushing over the fact that theater veteran Carla Guevara-Laforteza plays his mother in the musical. For someone who admits he doesn&rsquo;t do live singing and dancing, this was a huge step. That&rsquo;s why during the opening of Bagets: The Musical, an emotional Aga Muhlach went on stage to give his equally emotional son a hug &mdash; a seal of how proud he was. When asked what advice Aga gave his son, from one Adie to another: &ldquo;He gave me this tip &mdash; a really, really good one. I was like, &lsquo;Dad, anong advice mo para sa Bagets? Ano kayang pwede kong gawin?&rsquo; He was like, &lsquo;Kaya mo na yan!&rsquo; That&rsquo;s it&hellip; that&rsquo;s what I like about my parents too, they don&rsquo;t spoon-feed us. They just let us figure out and mess up and succeed on our own. That&rsquo;s the beauty of it.&rdquo;

&ldquo;My personal style? I would say it&rsquo;s simple. I just keep it clean,&rdquo; Muhlach explains. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really like to make it so complicated. I believe that less is more.&rdquo; His wardrobe staples are the perfect pair of denim jeans and a good watch. &ldquo;No matter what watch it is, as long as you&rsquo;re wearing one, it elevates your fit.&rdquo;
During the shoot, this sophisticated edge came alive in Bvlgari&rsquo;s iconic collections. Muhlach wore the architectural B.Zero1 rings that wind around his fingers like modern sculptures. The Serpenti pieces capture both strength and fluidity, while the Tubogas bracelets showcase the maison&rsquo;s signature flexible gold construction &mdash; each piece a testament to generations of Italian craftsmanship. And speaking of &ldquo;good&rdquo; watches, Muhlach alternates between the Bvlgari Aluminium and the Octo Roma, timepieces that embody different facets of modern masculinity.
When asked what resonates with him about Bvlgari, his response is immediate. &ldquo;I see the timelessness. It reflects classiness. I try to emulate that.&rdquo; Muhlach continues, &ldquo;What I like about Bvlgari, too, is that even if the designs are intricate, they&rsquo;re still clean. You can see in the jewelry that there are a lot of parts; they&rsquo;re engineered in a nice way, but they&rsquo;re still very clean.&rdquo;

Growing up in Philippine showbusiness &mdash; where even his grandparents Amalia Fuentes and Bernard Bonnin were huge stars &mdash; initially left Muhlach uncertain and in denial about whether he truly wanted to pursue acting. &ldquo;Do I actually want to do it? Am I actually interested or am I interested only because I&rsquo;m exposed to it?&rdquo; he shares of his thoughts early on. But then, as he grew older, Muhlach realized that he&rsquo;d be the prince among the queens and kings from his family. &ldquo;I really want to act. I love the idea that you get to be someone you&rsquo;re not and pretend. You have every right and every excuse to let out certain emotions that you can&rsquo;t just let out on a day-to-day basis.&rdquo;
Muhlach is one actor who wants to work with everyone. Show him a script so good he&rsquo;ll have trouble putting it down, and he&rsquo;ll take on that role. Dream directors? Dream actors? Not his focus. For Muhlach, it&rsquo;s about improving and growing as an actor by learning from his co-workers. He would like to take on big boy roles in the future, though &mdash; those that would make his lolo proud. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d want to try something like a CEO or a prince. But I think what would be really cool is, if in the future I could do Alyas Palos. My lolo, Bernard Bonnin, was the original Palos in the 1960s. They said that I have the same build as him. That would be a cool concept. Palos at the time was like Robin Hood: he&rsquo;d steal from the rich and give to the poor,&rdquo; he narrates.
Aside from the admirable features that he has inherited from his parents, what makes Muhlach so watchable is that he&rsquo;s a man in transition. He no longer questions his path, but at the same time, he is also not yet the fully-formed leading man he envisions becoming. He&rsquo;s the modern-day prince who is not defined by the throne he inherits, but by the risks he is willing to take in order to earn it. And he is only just beginning.

DEPUTY EDITORIAL DIRECTOR&nbsp;Joan Kong
PRODUCERS Paolo Chua and Knelle Rosario
FASHION ASSOCIATE Frances Laman
GROOMING Mabeth Concepcion
PRODUCTION DESIGN Ron Godinez Jr.
ASSISTANT PRODUCTION DESIGNER Ea Palmos
VIDEO Lorenzo Corro
CAMERA OPERATOR Heinrich Torres
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Jeron Ellana
PHOTOGRAPHER&rsquo;S ASSISTANTS Aniken Dela Cruz and Xavier Mallari
STYLING ASSISTANT Mel Calmante
GROOMING ASSISTANT Aleli Ronan

L'Officiel Hommes Philippines March 2026 Andres Muhlach cover

The Art of Becoming: Andres Muhlach

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