UrbanWire

UrbanWire catches up with sugar and spice MediaCorp TV actress JEANETTE AW, whose fame is rising too fast too furious.

While artistes from Kym Ng to Evelyn Tan defected from MediaCorp TV to rival station SPH MediaWorks a few years ago, Jeanette Aw bucked the trend. She quit Channel U (citing difficulty in coping with studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as the reason), joined Hype Records and then officially signed on as a MediaCorp artiste May 2002. She received flak and brickbats but, heck, it was possibly the best move in our local entertainment industry in recent times.

Consider the evidence – the year she joined MediaCorp TV, Jeanette won the Best Newcomer award, bagged a Top 10 Female Most Popular award at the Star Awards last year and even earned a Best Actress nomination for her memorable role as Mo Jingjing in Holland V. Currently, she's seen in drama serial Spice Siblings alongside leading man Tay Ping Hui and looking drop dead gorgeous in the new SK Jewellery advertising campaign.

With awards and diamonds to flaunt, not forgetting an Honours degree in Theatre Studies from NUS, pretty things are on the horizon for Jeanette. As the interview begins, the slim and fair-skinned actress politely declines eating her plate of fruits on the table. Instead, she looks intently at this reporter and puts on a sweet million-dollar smile. Seriously, how can we not like her?

Moving On
The road to Caldecott Hill has never been smooth for the actress who turns 25 on June 28. She's been called betrayer and labelled as an ingrate by her detractors. And it's been almost 2 years since Jeanette made that rewarding career 101 move.

Yet, one gets the feeling she really just wants to move on. "I was not really bothered by it. I received constructive criticism from my colleagues and I got friends who were very honest with me and they gave me views on what I was lacking. Basically I had support from all areas of my life. I guess those criticism that were meant to destroy me, I did not take into consideration," she explains in a measured tone. [^top]

V-ictory Role
Not only has Jeanette moved on from the controversy, she has acted in a few drama serials for Channel 8 (Beautiful Connection, True Heroes) in a short span of time. Her most unforgettable role to date and presumably breakthrough role is her ditzy and innocent Mo Jingjing character immortalised in the award winning drama Holland V last year. In a strange twist of irony, the youngest child in a family of 5 started to win fans' sympathy with that endearing Jingjing's sha xiao [goofy smile in Mandarin] that got many to sympathise with her character.

"Jingjing is someone with no ambition and hidden motives. If you want food, she will give it to you. She is just very nice. At first, it was difficult because sometimes I would be too alert and aware, but slowly it became easier to portray her," the 163cm tall actress recalls fondly of her character's innocence.

In the 125-episode drama, Jingjing is often blessed with luck. Does the character's luck rub off for Jeanette in real life? "Well, I am glad that I have been blessed in my school and work. I get to enjoy the things I do and I even gotten a job before I graduated. In a sense, I am very lucky," she exclaims in English. [^top]

All Rise
To describe Jeanette as an overachiever is an understatement. While her peers back were struggling with tuition classes or playing 5-stones, hopscotch or Game Boy, the feisty lass spent her time doing back-flips during gym classes in primary school, played the saxophone in her pubescent years and danced ballet right till her NUS days.

Perhaps that precocious impatience to try and excel in several areas – or kiasu-ism [Hokkien for afraid to lose] if you ask me – has impacted Jeanette's acting, which has garnered her a bagful of awards and established her on the fast track to A-list stardom.

Net Net (her nickname) puts her ambition in perspective: "I love performing and I guess I naturally evolve into acting from dancing, since dancing is also performing. I have this huge passion to perform."

It turns out to be a unique case of art imitating life. Jeanette plays the ambitious and spunky Wen Qing on Spice Siblings, a role that resonates with her real self in some ways. "My character wants to be a model, that is why she is ambitious. I would say I am like her in a sense that I am transparent. If I am angry, happy or grumpy, I will show it," the bilingual actress says. [^top]

Daredevil
Jeanette, whose real name is Ou Yanping, remains focussed and takes a reality check despite her meteoric rise in fame. "I will take things slowly and 1 step at a time. I would like to take on roles that can show my versatility. Roles like those in period dramas," the dainty actress adds.

Don't misunderstand Jeanette as a go-getter who's all work and no play because judging from her body language and occasional giggles during the interview, she's very much childlike, if not lively. Halfway during the interview, she even engaged in a mini repartee with Tay Ping Hui, who plays her brother and erm, lover (we won't into details here) in Spice Siblings.

You might think that that's not enough to show a less serious side to her. And so she provides proof, recalling an incident about 2 years ago.

"My friend and I were at Al Amin restaurant [located opposite Beauty World, a 15-min walk from our campus] and we ordered this huge murtabak [crispy Indian pastry with meat]. We thought we could not finish it and then my friend who understood Malay overheard this group of Malay guys near us laughing and saying we could not finish it. It was like a dare to us and so we finished it in the end!"

From devouring murtabak to nasi lemak [coconut rice with fried condiments made famous in Holland V] and now laksa [noodles in coconut gravy and the central subject of Spice Siblings], one can easily discern that Jeanette is constantly, for the lack of a better word, hungry for success. For now, she just has to settle for the plate of fruits on her table. [^top]

Pictures taken by UrbanWire reporter