Coco Martin

Rodel Pacheco Nacianceno was born on November 1, 1981, in Santa Cruz, Manila, and was largely raised by his grandmother in Novaliches, Quezon City, after his parents separated. He earned a hotel and restaurant management degree from the National College of Business and Arts while working as a waiter, flier distributor and barista to support his studies, and afterward spent nine months working as a janitor in Alberta, Canada, before returning to the Philippines. He joined ABS-CBN's Star Magic talent program in 2001 and made an uncredited film debut under his birth name that year.

On the advice of his manager, Nacianceno adopted the stage name Coco Martin, combining the names of singers Coco Lee and Ricky Martin, for his breakthrough lead role in Brillante Mendoza's 2005 drama Masahista (The Masseur), which won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. He went on to star in several more Mendoza films, including Serbis (2008), the first Filipino entry in competition at Cannes since 1984, and Kinatay (2009), for which Mendoza won the festival's Best Director award. Martin's television career expanded with lead roles in Tayong Dalawa (2009), Walang Hanggan (2012) and Juan dela Cruz (2013), and in 2015 he began starring as police officer Cardo Dalisay in FPJ's Ang Probinsyano, which ran for nearly seven years and 1,696 episodes before ending in 2022.

In 2017 Martin founded his own production company, CCM Film Productions, through which he has directed and produced several Metro Manila Film Festival entries, including Ang Panday (2017) and Jack Em Popoy: The Puliscredibles (2018). Since 2023 he has starred in and co-directed FPJ's Batang Quiapo. He is the older brother of actor Ronwaldo Martin and has been in a relationship with actress Julia Montes, his co-star since 2008, which the pair confirmed publicly in 2023.