Janna Cachola (born on October 29 1989) is an actress, singer, model and make up artist based in New Zealand. She has been performing since 2006 but rose to fame in 2010 when she was one of the Filipino cast of “Miss Saigon” musical in New Zealand (batchmates of Tina Braganza, Kimpoy Feliciano). She has been dubbed as New Zealands Filipina Princess.
Early Life
Cachola was born in Manila, Philippines to a solid christian family. Her father is Joe, a Filipino. Her mother is Emma Filipino/spanish mestiza. Attracted to performing at a young age, as her family is very showbiz oriented, she was trained in vocals at Ryan Cayabyab Music studio before departing for New Zealand. She spent most of her life in South Auckland, New Zealand.
Janna is related to stars Juvy Cachola (Sampaguita Pictures actress), Jean Altavas (Beauty Queen, Model, now turned Producer of Kisapmata productions ‘2010 Romeo at Juliet’ with Alessandra De Rossi & Victor Basa), Febe Magbanua-Pantoja (Former member of The CompanY) . Her great grandmother Marcelina Cachola was a WWII heroine who went face to face with the japanese to appeal for their man, which included her husband Vicente Cachola. (paragraph 4 newsflash.org/2003/01/tl/tl001887.htm)
Music Career
Cachola started taking singing seriously at the age of 14 after a ‘life changing’ visit to America. As she returned to New Zealand, she joined her church performing arts team.
In 2006, she auditioned for New Zealand Idol but failed to go through next rounds. The same year she performed at various bars in Philippines and recorded a demo (literally entitled) ‘Self-titled’. She began writing and recording songs, which leaked on to the internet and never saw release. She was part of several musical groups during the year.
In 2008, Cachola was discovered by a kiwi rapper Joshua Webb and was chosen to be a backing vocalist for Parachute Festival 2008. One of the biggest christian festivals in the southern hemisphere. From then, she appeared in 2 tracks ‘Society is a warzone’, ‘Keep’ for his album. Later that year, another kiwi rap artist Jzaman (Shaun Jervis) chose her to appear on his track ‘Back against the wall’ for his album ‘Comfort Zone’. Janna has performed all over New Zealand as a backing vocalist.
Acting Career
In 2009, Cachola took a step back from music, to pursue her first passion, acting. She got herself an agent in Auckland that got her parts as a background actor in various tv shows/commercials/music videos filmed in New Zealand.
In 2009 she moved to Dunedin and was casted in local musical theatre plays.
In 2010 she was in Miss Saigon musical for Dunedin, New Zealand.
Modeling Career
In 2011 Cachola admitted that she was depressed and low in self-esteem, so she signed on to do confidence/modeling course with the local Dunedin modeling agency Ali McD. She trained in Modeling with New Zealand Next Top Model ‘twins’ Nellie & Elza Jenkins along with the agency owner herself, Aliana McDaniel. Despite her small stature, the 5’1 ½ was signed into the agency. She was then discovered be a US based blogger. A Model & Author Isobella Jade, who named Ms Cachola ‘Petite model of the week’.
Miss Cachola has recently been casted for 2 shortfilms in NZ. One of them in which she plays ‘Scarlett’ and has created an internet buzz on her relationship status with a kiwi co-star from sister agency “McDaniel + Power management” whom avid fans aka “Jannafieds” like to call ‘Mystery Man’.
Several photos have showed up on her twitter and facebook of her recent projects which proves herself to be quite an action star/stunt actress. Janna is a trained hiphop dancer and takes up Kung Fu classes. Miss Cachola is a rising filipina actress in New Zealand. Even with a showbiz (Cachola) name handy. Janna wants to prove that “its all about how you play the game, and not how you flaunt the name”