I feel blessed. I keep getting pretty daughters.
For free.
The fact that these daughters are only my daughters for the duration of a shoot doesn’t change the fact that I keep getting them. Nor that they’re pretty. Nor that I’m now thinking it’s a sign that I should permanently market myself as an actress in the auntie/mother category.
Here’s my latest daughter:
Isn’t she a sweetie? Like all the rest of my screen daughters, awww.
I also get cute (screen) pets:
Oh, and cute (screen) husbands. Except I forgot to take a photo of my latest husband. But you’ll get to see him maybe in a month or so when the commercial goes on air.
Yes, my commercial roll has indeed rolled on into 2006, although it could have stopped rolling now, I don’t know. You can never tell with them rolly things.
Anyhow, this time, I’m endorsing a Kao household product as a mother. Eek.
The good news is that I’m supposed to act cute. Hahaha, can you beat that? Act cute mother.
I bet there are thousands of people out there who want to beat me up for acting cute, but I AM PAID TO ACT CUTE, so there.
For this commercial, the idea was for me to be a siao char bor anime-cute type housewife. It was a real challenge because, honestly, how cute can I act when I have my hair pinned up with auntie hair pins and I have a mop in my hand 80% of the time?
The dog is much cuter.
The clients initially didn’t want me because, looking at the audition tape, they thought I was a teenager.
I didn’t act cute in the audition, ok. I was wearing the most mature clothes I own and I had my hair tied up.
The production team thought I was perfect for the role so they fought very long and hard to convince the clients that I could be made to look like a mother.
So, thanks to them, I got the job. Yay.
But I feel a severe identity crisis.
Just a week ago, I was offered the leading role of a 19-year-old in a short film.
I honestly don’t know how to market myself anymore.
Recently, I was rejected for a Pizza Hut commercial for the same reason I was almost rejected for the Kao commercial.
I arrived at the Pizza Hut audition wearing a mickey mouse blouse and short denim skirt because I wasn’t told beforehand what I was auditioning for, and also because I went there directly after another audition for an 18-year-old lead (which I got but had to turn down.)
In the casting room, I found out that Pizza Hut was looking for a young mother. I was, like, “Eeks! But I’m wearing this!” which made me look even more juvenile.
I can be such a dodo sometimes.
But I think I did well because the director called me to say he really wanted to cast me, but the Pizza Hut people thought I was a teenager and totally couldn’t visualise me as a mother, what with mickey mouse and all. I suppose I can’t blame them.
You see the pattern.
I am constantly having to change my image to suit different clients (sometimes many times in a day), which is fun, no doubt, but it really wreaks havoc on my psyche.
But I don’t want to limit myself since the acting job market in Singapore is already so lean it’s 100% fat free.
I guess I’ll have to carry on not having a real age to call my own.
Anyway, switching age is much easier than switching gender, as Vincent will tell you (if you ask him).
Heheh.
The Kao shoot was an impressively huge production. It was shot at someone’s house, which looks more like a resort than a private residence. Lunch and dinner were catered, buffet style, but I couldn’t eat much because we were kept very busy all day, filming non stop.
Oh, to be so rich that your poolside patio is bigger than the average Singaporean’s living room.
Wait. What am I saying?
Oh, to be so rich that you even have a swimming pool in your house. Never mind the patio.