‘The Listerine is ready, please go and help yourself’: Kym Ng’s husband chill about her intimate scenes with Pierre Png

Despite intimate scenes being part and parcel of acting, you have to wonder if the partners of actors get jealous sometimes. At least for local actress Kym Ng, her husband seems unfazed.

In local drama When Duty Calls 2, Kym, 55, reprises her role as Loke Meiguang, which got her a Best Supporting Actress win in Star Awards in 2018.

Meiguang is a middle-aged housewife married to Tan Kim Po played by Pierre Png, 48, who goes from a reluctant soldier in season one to a craft beer bar owner. Season two sees the couple try for a child and there are a few cheeky scenes.

“My husband knows I won’t really ‘enjoy’ it because I prefer mature men. I always say [young guys are] handsome but I like to admire older men,” Kym told 8Days in a recent interview.

Instead, he was more worried about the spread of germs via kissing. “When I told my husband that there were kissing scenes, he said, ‘No, now got Covid-19, you cannot stick out your tongue’.

“Then when I got home and told him I’m done with the kissing scene, he told me, ‘Okay, the Listerine is ready, please go and help yourself’.”

That tickled Kym who felt his response was “very cute”.

On the other hand, Kym herself was initially hesitant about the scenes with Pierre, as she had spent her career of almost three decades without filming an intimate scene with a co-star.

“As an actress, when I saw the script I already felt like, ‘No lah…’ Can you imagine how people will feel when they actually see us doing it?” Kym said, as she felt watching an “auntie” go at it would be “gross”.

While her friends found the scene funny, unfortunately they also saw negative comments about it in the media.

Kym was reassured by the staff of When Duty Calls 2, who told her the scenes are meant to be more fun than sexual, which it was — with Meiguang turning on her charms for Kim Po at the back of the bar but the poor couple getting interrupted anyway.

Despite that, Kym jokingly apologised for “frightening” the audience and subjecting them to two middle-aged people getting it on.

When Duty Calls 2, which also stars Desmond Tan, Paige Chua, Felicia Chin, Tyler Ten, Nick Teo and Edwin Goh, airs weekdays at 9pm on Channel 8. It is also available on demand for free on meWATCH.