Sandra Ng may be one of Hong Kong’s most respected and bankable actresses, but her showbiz journey wasn’t all plain sailing.
Best known for her comedic roles, the 59-year-old recently appeared on Hong Kong host Carol Cheng’s YouTube channel The Do Show to promote her new movie Love Lies.
During the show, the pair, who go way back, reminisced their time working in TVB.
Minor roles aside, Sandra, who signed with the broadcaster in 1984 after graduating from the artiste training class, recalled only acting in five dramas.
She got her break in variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight (EYT) but not long after, she left the TVB and turned her focus to films.
So what made her leave the TV station?
Sandra hesitated before replying: “The pay was too low.”
“This one is great at calculating. Actually, Sandra is very smart!” remarked Carol, adding that she believed that Sandra had a solid plan for her future.
However, Sandra admitted the shift wasn’t entirely planned.
“It was accidental because I was really frustrated. They gave me a raise [of] HK$50 (about S$8.40) each month. Would you keep working for that?” she asked.
It didn’t help that jobs were “unpredictable, like being picked by a producer out at sea”.
“Although making films is similarly uncertain, at least the pay wasn’t that low,” said Sandra.
When Carol asked if she was afraid back then, Sandra replied: “Looking back, I’m not criticising them; I’m just stating facts. Their system was like that — they gave you fame, but if you did commercials or films, it was your own business. They didn’t give bonuses. The whole system was like that. I even questioned myself at the time: ‘Am I really worth so little? You’re offering me HK$500 (S$84) per show and only giving me a HK$50 (S$8.40) raise.’”
Sandra revealed that she had already started receiving film offers back then: “But they could stop anytime. How could you know if you’d get more movie roles?”
Despite the uncertainty, she remained positive: “Was I supposed to retire after two films? I’ve always taken things as they come. I’m not someone who calculates everything so precisely.”
Besides TVB, Sandra and Carol also hosted radio shows together in the mid ’90s
Sandra joked that she took the job due to the slump in the film industry.
She barely made any money from several films during that period and even had to sell her house to pay off her loan and debts incurred from making her first movie, experimental art film 4 Faces Of Eve.
Though the movie was not a box office hit, it earned Sandra a Best Actress nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards.