‘Be like Jeremy, be funnier’: Carrie Wong has to imitate Jeremy Chan’s acting style after her character gets possessed by his

Have you ever watched a body swap drama or movie and noticed how accurately actors can take on the mannerisms of the character they’re supposed to be?

Actress Carrie Wong had to learn the quirks of her castmate Jeremy Chan for their upcoming Channel 8 drama Soul Detective, where Jeremy plays a ghost who possesses Carrie’s character Ang Jieshan, a police detective and sceptic.

During the Localicious event at Our Tampines Hub on Saturday (Oct 8), which included a meet-and-greet with local actors, the 28-year-old told AsiaOne that the most interesting part about filming the drama was having to play as Jeremy’s character.

“When I was filming, he needed to be on set,” she said. “He needed to show me how he would react to things.

“It was a very different experience because as actors, we don’t usually copy other people’s acting.”

What made the role challenging for Carrie was how “imaginative, funny and interesting” of a person Jeremy was.

She said: “The things he told me were funny but difficult to act out. Sometimes, I tried to imitate him, but the director would say, ‘No, you need to open up and be more like Jeremy, be funny. You have to exaggerate.’”

Soul Detective follows Ding, a police officer from the netherworld who is on a mission to hunt down three evil spirits who have escaped into the human world. Ding accidentally possesses the body of a human policeman Peh Ye, and the two of them subsequently strike a deal to assist each other in their respective missions.

It’s unclear how Ding comes to possess Jieshan.

In line with the spooky theme, part of Soul Detective was filmed in a tunnel along the Rail Corridor which some claim is haunted.

Carrie was struck by how “beautiful” the location was, amazed that “such a place existed in Singapore” and that it was a perfect place to shoot a supernatural show.

Instead of being attacked by spirits, however, Carrie felt the wrath of mosquitoes. Even bug repellent labelled as being “for commandos” didn’t prevent their bites.

“I didn’t feel anything supernatural there, I just got a few mosquito bites,” she said. “It was also very smelly because of the smoke they were releasing to make the atmosphere more ghostly.”

She added: “I didn’t even know the place was haunted until recently. I saw a lot of people hiking there, so I thought it was a normal tunnel along a hiking route. So, sometimes ignorance is bliss.”

You can catch Soul Detective on Channel 8 from Nov 21 every Monday to Friday at 9pm, or stream it on meWATCH.