Mikoy Morales and Esteban Mara say love comes without any manual, much like their roles in Puregold’s vertical series Got My Eyes on You, now streaming on TikTok.
Morales plays Drew, an ambitious operations manager torn between work and family duty, while Mara is Shawn, the guest relations manager who unsettles both his career and his heart.
At the show’s press launch on Sept. 16, Morales brushed off labels when asked about stepping into the BL genre. “Love is love,” he said. “Being in a BL doesn’t mean you approach it differently. It’s just another story of two people, and you have to play it with the same honesty.”
Mara, who described himself as an advocate of understanding, echoed the sentiment. He explained that his portrayal wasn’t about imitating stereotypes but about grounding it in truth.
“I just looked at it as a concept of love,” he said. “For me, it was simple: I see Drew (as Shawn) as someone I love. That truth is what I wanted to show.”
Director Dizelle Masilungan explained that the series was designed to move beyond surface-level romance, exploring struggles familiar to many Filipinos.
“We want to look into how people’s lives, especially breadwinners, intertwine love and career,” he said, noting that Drew’s dilemma mirrors the cultural push and pull between duty and personal happiness.
Producer Chris Cahilig, who has championed Puregold’s push for vertical storytelling, emphasized that the show was built on sincerity, not gimmicks.
“We want real narratives,” he said. “What matters is casting good actors who commit to their characters. When audiences watch, the goal is for them to say, ‘Wow, that feels real.’”
Set in a resort where ambition and romance collide, the series has already drawn strong reactions from Gen Z and LGBT audiences online. But for its creators and cast, the real win is normalizing queer love stories as part of everyday storytelling.
“Acting is about being true to the character,” Mara added. “When you start from a place of understanding, it becomes real—and that’s what audiences connect with.”
With episodes dropping thrice weekly, Got My Eyes on You is shaping up to be less about fleeting trends and more about portraying love stories that, as Morales puts it, “could belong to anyone.”
