Do you have a ritual as a performer?
Before every performance, I meditate for about 15 minutes. It helps me to calm down and to condition my body before I go on stage – especially in the theatre, because I have that long journey to go through as an actor. I used to always have cold hands, and meditating warms me up… it’s like magic!
What keeps you up at night?
YouTube! Every night, I watch either basketball or stand-up comedy before I go to sleep.
You’re throwing a dinner party for five guests – dead or alive, real or fictional. Whom would you invite?
I love basketball, so I would invite Michael Jordan – my all-time basketball hero. Stephen Chow, because I love his movies. Sebastian Tan, my Monkey Goes West director, because he loves to hang out and have a drink. Ash, so he can give me some tips on Pokemon hunting. And I would call upon Russell Peters to do a stand-up show for all of us!
What’s one of your pet peeves?
I’m not easily irritated, actually. But I cannot take it when people have spinach on their teeth. I call it a ‘kangkong check’ – and I do one every time before we go on stage!
If you were entertaining a visitor from overseas, what’s the one place in Singapore you’d take them to?
In the daytime, I’d probably bring a visitor to the zoo – it’s so clean and well-planned. Maybe the Night Safari at night… or Clarke Quay, since anyone who goes on holiday would want to check out the local nightspots. Lots of people visit Singapore because it’s a melting pot of many cultures and countries, and you can see all of that when you go to Clarke Quay.
Who’s your favourite actor?
Stephen Chow. I really love him a lot – I think I share this sentiment with many people! His comedy is really fantastic; he always brings out the most humour at the point of the highest tragedy. It intrigues me that a professor from Beijing has conducted a study on how Stephen Chow makes his films! A few directors and actors have replicated Stephen Chow’s mo lei tau (无理头) comedy, but he was really the first one to create this entire genre of films.
Tell us about the theatrical experience that changed your life.
A few years back, I played the title character in Lao Jiu: The Musical with The Theatre Practice. For about half a year after the show ended, I still found myself affected by the role. There is a rawness and power in Kuo Pao Kun’s script that touches people at a very basic level. For the longest time, I couldn’t understand the character, who was willing to sacrifice his family in order to pursue his dreams. Family is everything to me, and I didn’t realise how strongly I felt about that until I played this part.
That production helped me realise that every piece of theatre allows me to get to know myself a little better. We all have questions in life that we push aside and that we don’t face, occasionally for years. But theatre forces you to come to terms with these questions – otherwise your role wouldn’t feel true to life. In every show I do, I encounter difficult questions that I have to answer for myself. A really good play makes you think, and makes you search for and come to know who you really are.
If you could import something that you can’t get in Singapore, what would it be?
Water honey peaches (水蜜桃) from Taiwan! They’re the best peaches I’ve ever had in my whole life – so sweet and juicy. Maybe I love them so much because I’m playing the Monkey King… You know, the other celestial beings ate one peach and got 10,000 years of life each – Monkey ate a whole garden of peaches! [laughs]
