‘I still have some old injuries’: Charmaine Sheh had to pay for own medical bills after getting hurt early in filming career

Injuries may happen when you’re filming stunts, but Charmaine Sheh had to cover her own medical costs early in her career.

At a banking event on Sept 23, the Hong Kong actress revealed that she learnt about financial matters “slowly”.

“I remember very clearly that I acted in a lot of martial arts shows back in the day and got injured,” Hong Kong media reported Charmaine, 49, as saying. “I didn’t buy medical insurance because I wasn’t aware of it then.”

She said she was in a tough spot paying for her own medical and hospitalisation fees, adding: “It was expensive but I had to pay for it myself. After one incident, I bought medical and critical illness insurance policies.”

When asked about the stunts she did back then, Charmaine said that she didn’t have any dangerous experiences but “pitiful ones” instead, like being wired up and “flying around”.

She added: “I once had to kneel on the ground and continue filming even though it was hard to. A week later, both of my legs were injured. It was so painful I cried.

“Filming used to be scheduled very tightly and I still have some old injuries.”

Charmaine entered showbiz as second runner-up at Miss Hong Kong 1997 and started her acting career shortly after.

Now that she’s experienced, Charmaine said at the event that she buys extra coverage for herself before filming risky scenes, but added that insurance policies don’t usually cover activities that are deemed too dangerous.

But is she more protective of herself and careful now, after all the past injuries?

“Not really,” Charmaine said. “If the script requires something, I will try to accommodate it.”

She recalled a scene in the 2015 Return of the Cuckoo movie where she had to do a bungee jump, and felt “very brave initially”.

“But it kept raining that day. I was all geared up but we couldn’t film it even after waiting for a long time,” she said. “The more I waited, the more afraid I became.”

Thankfully, for the sake of Charmaine’s nerves, the persistent rain led to the scene being cancelled.