In the latest episode of #JustSwipeLah, Jack Neo was interviewed by host Xixi Lim about his journey as a director, and his experience creating roles for different actors.
The 64-year-old director of box office hits like I Not Stupid and Money No Enough, shared: “When you are creating a character, you must first understand their emotions of happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy. When we hold auditions, we look at their emotions, and whether they meet our requirements.”
“But we still chose the wrong people,” he added to Xixi’s surprise.
Turns out, Jack isn’t always a hundred per cent accurate with his judgement when it comes to casting.
“There was one time I really buay tahan (couldn’t stand it). I was really close to firing someone. It was Cynthia Kuang, who acted in Long Long Time Ago 2,” he said.
Cynthia played the younger version of Mei Xin’s character, Suting, in the 2016 local film.
“When she came for the audition, she could speak dialect, and she did everything pretty well, so she passed,” said Jack. “But during the actual filming, she couldn’t portray [her character] well no matter what she did. I had such a headache, and was thinking [we] were doomed.”
He said some “really harsh words” to Cynthia, telling her he would replace her if she still could not perform. According to Jack, it was the “first and only time” in his career he said anything of that sort to an actress.
Cynthia burst into tears on the spot upon hearing Jack’s words.
Thankfully, the other actors, including Mediacorp actress Aileen Tan, spoke to Jack on Cynthia’s behalf. They offered to guide the young actress along.
“I said, ‘No, if she can’t do it, then that’s it’. After saying that, the other cast members really helped her, and when she returned, she was very different. She managed to “catch” the right feelings [for the role],” he added.
Jack said Cynthia became “better and better” once she got the hang of the role and he’s now sure he chose the right person.
He also explained his reason for using showbiz newcomers in most of his films, like in Ah Boys To Men, when the cast was made up of mostly fresh faces.
“We had no choice, if we don’t use newcomers, we wouldn’t be able to shoot the film at all. The experienced actors have too many work commitments, they have TV dramas to shoot amongst other jobs, and there’s no way to gather everyone. If you have to keep matching the schedules of one or two people, it would be worse for the whole production,” he said.
Watch Jack’s full interview on #JustSwipeLah below.