From ‘a super lot of fun’ to eventually needing counselling, Chantalle Ng has roller coaster ride playing 1st villain role
As a child, Chantalle Ng followed her actress mum Lin Meijiao to the set of local blockbuster series The Little Nyonya (2008).
While Meijiao was acting as the villainous eldest wife of the Huang household in front of the cameras, 12-year-old Chantalle would be exploring the film set.
“I remember walking around the kitchen and looking into the well that Jeanette Aw’s character Yueniang fell into. I was just exploring the space because when they were filming on one side, the other areas were empty,” Chantalle, now 29, told AsiaOne recently while promoting her new drama Emerald Hill — The Little Nyonya Story.
She said that it was her ambition to become an actress since she was young and while on the set then, she thought it would be “cool” to be involved in a similar production.
More than 16 years later, her dream came true when she landed the role of antagonist Zhang Anna in the spinoff.
“I feel that I was meant for this, it really felt like the stars aligned,” she shared, adding that she was really “excited” when she first heard the news.
But when she received her script and read about Anna, it became “one of [her] biggest struggles”.
Chantalle shared: “There were so many parts of her that I completely, absolutely cannot accept… She does a lot of things that are very sneaky and behind someone’s back and I don’t respect that.
“In real life, I’m not like that. I’m very open, direct and confrontational if I have to be, but doing sneaky stuff, that’s not something I agree with.”
However, Chantalle had to accept Anna and think from her point of view, so Chantalle spoke to scriptwriter Ang Eng Tee and executive producer Loh Woon Woon and took one month to understand the character and her actions.
Emerald Hill — The Little Nyonya Story centres around the ups and downs of the wealthy Zhang family, who face tragedies and conflicts over the years while living together.
Anna, who is the daughter of Zhang Jinquan (Romeo Tan) and Kang Sili (Dawn Yeoh), returns to the family when she is 10 years old after being sent away as an infant to be raised by distant relatives.
Her beauty hides her malicious nature where she often commits shocking deeds. She is at odds with Zhang Xinniang (Tasha Low), finding every opportunity to drive the latter out of the family.
Applying teachings from Xie Shaoguang and Lin Meijiao
Chantalle also applied what local veteran actor Xie Shaoguang taught her when playing Anna.
“He shared with me that whenever he is acting as a good person, he tries to find the complicated parts about him, and when he acts as a bad person, he finds the good in him. That’s what I tried to do for Anna. She’s very strong throughout the drama and I was trying to find where people could see the layers too, to explain why she’s like that,” Chantalle said.
She added she didn’t want to approach the role in a way that viewers would know Anna is a bad person once she appears on screen.
“Because I honestly don’t think there are people who think they’re the bad person in their story. In another point of view, if you consider the experiences that she had, you wouldn’t think she’s a bad person as well. She is a good person who unfortunately had to do some things to protect herself.”
Though Chantalle didn’t discuss Anna with mum Meijiao while designing her character, the latter read her script and provided her with helpful tips on approaching her scenes differently.
“Initially it was very refreshing, a super lot of fun… I was completely enjoying myself just because it was very refreshing and I felt very free. I could be whatever I wanted to be. I didn’t have to fit into the goody-two-shoes role anymore. It was really a very new experience for me,” she said.
She also found herself laughing at some of Anna’s lines.
“I would laugh out loud when I read them and I would be so excited to recite them that I wouldn’t allow anyone to change them because I wanted to say it. Even when we’re not acting, I would still be in character and it was hilarious.”
‘I teared up and had a meltdown’
However, towards the end of production, Chantalle found that playing Anna had taken a toll on her.
Pre-production preparation started last January and they wrapped filming in October.
“It started to weigh me down quite a bit and I needed counselling from our executive producer (Woon Woon). To hold on to Anna for so long was very heavy and draining. When I was at home or when I had a few days break, I would withdraw from the character, but it was very tiring whenever I had to prepare myself mentally to go back into that state of mind again,” she said.
She revealed that Woon Woon was a “very big emotional support” for her and lent her a listening ear.
“We did an interview and she asked me what I would like to say to Anna. I teared up and had a meltdown. Even talking about it now is quite emotional for me, because I think I really understood how she didn’t receive any form of love from her parents. I wanted to tell her that’s okay and she doesn’t have to fit into whatever people want her to be,” she shared.
While she is excited for viewers to see her performance in the drama, she is also “terrified”.
She explained: “I just hope that people can see the difference and that I’m actually not that character. I think as an actress, as a public figure, you tend to have this side of you where you’re people-pleasing, and you want people to like and support you.
“This is the first time where I feel like I’m going in another direction and acknowledging that this is part of my craft and the journey.”
Emerald Hill — The Little Nyonya Story is now available on Netflix. It will also be available on demand for free on Mewatch from March 17 and premieres on Channel 8 on March 19, airing on Mondays to Fridays at 9pm.
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