Sweet Jeanette has turned into a diva?!
MediaCorp TV, He Xingying
Relax, Jeanette Aw is not about to trade her girl-next-door image and sugary smile for diva tantrums thrown by the likes of Naomi Campbell; she is simply putting on airs and behaving like a spoilt brat for new drama Switched! (Xing Yun Xing, formerly known as Jia Ru Zhe Shi Zhen), which also stars Fann Wong, Shaun Chen and Terence Cao. We find out just how big a diva she can be.
The door to the make-up unit swings open and a confident lady swaggers in, making her presence felt by screeching a greeting sure to shake its recipients from any tinge of sleepiness: “GOOOOOOD MORNING!! I bought snacks for everybody, come and have your fill! If it’s not enough, I can buy more for you!”
“Gosh, is that Jeanette Aw?” wonder the make-up artists, shocked by the sudden outburst of megastar attitude from the low-key actress who usually walks in quietly and greets them softly.
Referring to a scene in new drama Switched! (Xing Yun Xing, formerly known as Jia Ru Zhe Shi Zhen) where she plays Xinhui, an actress of Ah-jie status, Jeanette half-exclaimed and half-whined to the web team in her kittenish voice: “This character that I am playing is such a diva I don’t know how to act like her! Sometimes I even get goose bumps because I find it very awkward to do the things she does! It’s very different from what I understand from being a celebrity myself.”
Unlike her on-screen personality Xinhui, who has her own personal assistant and starts throwing tantrums when she is frustrated with the long wait between shoots, Jeanette said this is not how she usually behaves.
We also dug up a little entertainment gossip from Jeanette as she explained the source of her acting inspirations during filming break at Snow City, where the skiing scenes for Switched! were filmed under -7 C¡ã climate.
“Some artistes really come into the make-up unit and greet everybody,” revealed Jeanette, who then hilariously mimicked how an unnamed female artiste (whose personality Jeanette said was “perhaps just more polite”) would make it a point to greet each and every make-up artist in the room in a soft and gentle voice. “I learnt from observation and exaggerated what I saw to play this character.”
From diva attitude to inferiority complex
Apart from having to act like a diva, the bright-eyed actress also has to play Fann Wong’s character Xinyu when the two sisters swap souls under a genie’s magic spell. (Doesn’t that sound almost like what happened to Gurmit Singh and Fann Wong in Jack Neo’s movie, Just Follow Law earlier this year?) The pretty but princessy Xinhui is then forced to reside in the body of the shy Xinyu, born with a red birthmark over her left temple and who feels inferior compared to her younger sister Xinhui.
“I have to pay more attention to little details, such as Xinyu’s intonation, mannerisms and actions, and make them more obvious in order to bring out her character,” said Jeanette. “For example, elder sister Xinyu is quieter and more often deep in thought, so I have to concentrate more on her expressions and inner feelings.”
When Jeanette and Fann went for shoots together, the two would exchange pointers on playing each other’s roles. Jeanette explained: “Sometimes Fann would ask me how I would say a particular line, and we would imitate how each other talk and behave. An example in the show is how we would sayang (“show affection for” in Malay) the guys Shaun (Chen) and Terence (Cao).”
However, things did not start off easy for Jeanette, who had to start filming the scenes of a Xinyu-trapped-in-Xinhui’s-body before she had a chance to see how Fann plays Xinyu as the latter was still in China when filming for Switched! started.
“Because Xinyu is very conscious of her birthmark, she would touch her birthmark instinctively sometimes. The red mark was initially fixed on the right side of the face, and so I would touch the right side of my face in the scenes. But the birthmark was later changed to the left side of the face and we had to re-shoot some of the scenes,” Jeanette moaned slightly as she spoke.
In another scene, Jeanette had to turn into a Chinese herb guru as she rattled off a long introduction of a dish made with Chinese herbs and its effects.
“I spent the previous night memorising and memorising and memorising,” Jeanette whined in a cute manner as she recounted the torturous experience. “That was the first time I had so many hanyu pinyin (pronunciation aid for Chinese characters) written on my script!”
That aside, Jeanette agreed that this character is very different from the roles she has played, and is perhaps the one with the most room for expression and character development.
Watch out for Jeanette Aw as she takes up two different personalities in Switched!, scheduled to debut on June 26 at 9pm! The drama also stars Fann Wong, Shaun Chen, Terence Cao, Zzen and Julian Hee.
