Star Awards: Time for first-time lead acting nominees Hong Ling, Richie Koh, Desmond Ng and Ayden Sng to shine

At the Star Awards 2022, veteran Singapore actor Chen Hanwei landed his seventh Best Actor win of his career, prompting the 53-year-old to urge for more recognition for local entertainment’s young stars.

His Best Actress counterpart was long-time friend and fellow thespian Huang Biren, 54, herself a four-time winner.

While the pair’s acting chops are not in question, Mediacorp’s annual awards show for its Chinese-language content was still lamented for giving its top acting prizes to the much-feted old guard of home-grown television.

Five usual suspects – Chen with seven wins, former actor Xie Shaoguang with five wins, Li Nanxing and Qi Yuwu with three wins each and Christopher Lee with two wins – took home 20 years of Best Actor trophies since the awards’ conception in 1995.

And seven actresses – Zoe Tay and Huang Biren (four wins each), Chen Liping and Ivy Lee (three wins each), and the trio of Rebecca Lim, Joanne Peh and Rui En (two wins each) – cover 20 years of Best Actress wins.

This year, however, could bode the winds of change, with a fresh slate of first-time nominees in their 20s and 30s. New to the Best Actor category are Ayden Sng, Richie Koh and Desmond Ng, while another rising star Hong Ling snagged her first Best Actress nomination after close to a decade of acting. 

Ng and Hong are also in the running for Top 10 Most Popular Male and Female Artistes respectively. Sng and Koh are vying for the newly added Most Popular Rising Star award, another public-voting popularity prize on a par with the Top 10 Most Popular Artistes trophy but given to three young stars with fewer than five years of industry experience as of Jan 1, 2022. Results will be announced at Star Awards 2023’s ceremony on Sunday.

The Straits Times speaks to the new generation of stars lighting up Singapore’s show-business scene.  

Hong Ling, 28

Hong Ling was still lying in bed, half asleep, on Feb 15 when she received the best and biggest news of her career so far – that she had been nominated for Best Actress.

The 28-year-old recounts: “My manager called and congratulated me on getting the nomination. I was just very happy and we were both screaming on the phone. Then, when the call ended, my tears just flowed.

“I’ve been waiting for a nomination since a few years back. I’ve always wanted this, but never had the chance to be nominated, so this is a huge encouragement for me as an actress.”

Hong was given a nod for her role as Zheng Tianxi, the big sister to an intellectually disabled man (Richie Koh) in the much-lauded family drama Your World In Mine (2022), which won Best Drama Serial and Best Theme Song at an untelevised gala dinner on March 30, a precursor to this Sunday’s Star Awards. 

The 20-episode series was highly praised for spotlighting the experiences of families with special-needs children and its realistic performances. 

Hong recalls: “I went hiking after the drama aired and bumped into some special-needs children hiking with their parents. They were very happy to see me, and we hiked together for a bit. I felt very special at that moment.”

 

While her character was loved by audiences, she was not hyping herself up for any awards.

“I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I’ve been in this industry for nine years and had never been nominated for a performance, so while I was praying hard, I didn’t want to feel disappointed,” she says.

The half-Thai beauty was scouted via the talent search programme Hey Gorgeous in 2013. She was a semi-finalist in the competition, which also counted actress Carrie Wong and fellow Your World In Mine co-star Koh as runners-up.

Although she has been acting consistently since 2014 and won the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes award in 2021 and 2022, she has never been nominated for her work in dramas. 

“I’ve always had doubts about myself, especially in acting, because if you’re really good, you will get nominated no matter what, right? But rather than get demoralised, I try to improve myself, and it’s finally my turn this year.”

Hong is in the company of heavyweight actresses – last year’s winner Huang Biren, who is also nominated for Your World In Mine, as well as Zoe Tay, Rebecca Lim and Jesseca Liu. While Hong harbours hope, she admits her odds of beating her more experienced rivals are slim.

But the night will still be a major one for her and her actor-fiance Nick Teo, 33, who is in the running for the first time in the Top 10 Most Popular Male Artistes category this year, since rules changed to open the award up to any eligible talent.

Previously, only 40 talents – 20 men and 20 women – selected from a popularity survey of 1,000 people could be in the running for the Top 10 Most Popular Male and Female Artistes.

The lovebirds have been engaged since Teo proposed on Hong’s birthday in August 2022 and are busy planning their wedding, which is slated for later in 2023. They recently returned from a pre-wedding photoshoot in Jeju, South Korea.

“It’s crazy. I’m very happy Nick received his first nomination and that we are getting married. I think it’s our year,” she gushes.

Hong is all in on rallying for her beau of eight years, since the recipients are decided by audience votes.

She says: “Our friends and relatives have been voting for me since a few years back when I received my first award and they have asked other people to vote as well. This year, I told them to focus on voting for Nick – that’s more important.”

Richie Koh, 29

If there is anyone who is a hot favourite to win the Best Actor category this year, it is probably Richie Koh.

After all, his performance as an intellectually disabled adult, Zheng Tiancai, in Your World In Mine was not only well received by viewers, but it also received a shoutout from Chen Hanwei on Instagram, who posted stills of Koh from the series in July 2022 and called his performance a “pleasant surprise”.

But Koh is being chill about his prospects. He says in an e-mail interview: “I think my chances are 50/50 because it’s either win or lose. No matter what the results are, I’m just thankful for the great response and outpouring of support from the audience. I feel like the little bit of effort I contributed to highlight a minority community has been seen.” 

Still, he is preparing a speech, just in case he does nab the top prize. 

“I have prepared something, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to remember it on stage. I might be nervous like on my first day of acting all over again,” he says. 

While Koh may be the most talked-about cast member of Your World In Mine, the drama is a powerhouse at Star Awards 2023. 

Hong Ling and Huang Biren are nominated for Best Actress, Zhu Houren for Best Supporting Actor, Lina Ng and Xiang Yun for Best Supporting Actress and Desmond Ng, who plays Tiancai’s good friend in the series, for Best Actor. 

Koh knows how much work he and his castmates have put in, talking to and observing children and adults with special needs as well as their caregivers to prepare for the series. But he reveals that the cast was not entirely certain that the drama would play well with audiences before it aired. 

“We were kind of gambling with the approach,” he says. “We didn’t know if this almost documentary-like style of filming and the theme of special needs would resonate with audiences. But everyone went above and beyond to achieve what every scene required.”

With so many nominations, Koh says he hopes everyone can walk away with a win, though that is not possible, with a few competing in the same categories.

When it comes to Best Actor though, he is not feeling any rivalry with Ng. The Your World In Mine duo are up against fellow first-time nominee Ayden Sng, veteran Brandon Wong and three-time winner Qi Yuwu.

 

“We are close friends. Whoever wins is the one who deserves it. I’ve already earned a friend in him, so what more can I want?”

Koh, who entered the industry as second runner-up in Hey Gorgeous in 2013 but started acting only in 2017, is also nominated for Most Popular Rising Star. His family and friends have even been mobilised to vote for him daily. 

“Some of them even ask their friends or colleagues to vote for me, you know? Aiyo, I’m so thankful.”

Koh is filming a new dialect series Whatever Will Be, Will Be, slated to air in July, and is kept busy with learning new words and perfecting his dialect pronunciation, as the show features dialogue in Teochew, Cantonese and Hokkien.

But he still has time in his schedule to choose a suit for his big night. 

When asked if he might pair it with auspiciously coloured underwear, the way actor-host Bryan Wong famously did at previous Star Awards (red for 2005, yellow for 2006) when he scored big wins like Best Comedy Performer and Best Variety Show Host respectively, he says with a laugh: “Should I try for some lucky colour on the big day? I don’t know.”

Desmond Ng, 35

Desmond Ng was very surprised and a bit “blur” when he heard that he had been nominated for a Best Actor award.

He says: “I was like, ‘Nominated for what? Is it for (2022 nursing series) You Can Be An Angel 4?’”

The nomination, in fact, was for Your World In Mine, but Ng had “forgotten” that he, too, counted as a lead actor in the series. He thought the top billing was reserved for fellow Best Actor nominee Richie Koh.

“Since the story is a bit more focused on Tiancai, I just thought of myself as one of his friends in the show,” Ng recalls. “Even my mum was surprised, like, ‘Lead actor? So impressive?’”

But the underdog had quite a meaty role on the show. Not only does he share a romantic arc with Hong Ling’s character, but his Hong Maodan is estranged from his family and struggles to cope with his mother’s (Xiang Yun) dementia.

“Actually, when I heard about the role, I thought it was a comedy because of my name Hong Maodan (a pun on rambutan in Chinese). Then it turned out to be a drama about a pretty sombre topic,” he says.

Ng says he is rooting for every cast member nominated and, most of all, his on-screen and off-screen pal Koh.

 

“Richie’s the hot favourite and I do think he should get it. When I was acting opposite him, he helped me to get into my role very easily because of how good he was. I was wondering how he would go about acting as Tiancai, and from the first day, he was so well prepared.”

As for himself?

“I know it’s a cliche to say a nomination is already a recognition, but it’s true. This is a very important award and I feel seen for my efforts,” he says. 

Ng, who received his break after winning singing competition GeTai Challenge in 2015, was nominated at the Star Awards in 2022 for hosting the infotainment programme Curious City and he nabbed Best Theme Song in 2018 for When Duty Calls. 

Ng considers singing his first love – he still sings as part of his band Al4ha (pronounced “alpha”) with two friends and they release singles every year, which are often used as theme songs in Channel 8 dramas. Acting was a venture he was not too sure about. 

“I was very focused on singing, so I wasn’t familiar with acting and I didn’t watch many dramas. Even when I watched television, I would watch singing programmes,” he says.

But he received opportunities to act, starring in long-form series like Old Is Gold (2019) and playing a villain in the popular drama My Star Bride (2021).

Ng feels the latest nomination is like a “ray of hope”.

“Honestly, I wanted to be a singer at first. So acting was a struggle for me. I had no idea what I was doing. I learnt slowly and even as people were saying to me that I’ve improved, I didn’t know at what rate I was improving.

“So this is a good encouragement. It tells me I can go in this direction, that I should continue acting.”

Ayden Sng, 29

There is no doubt that Ayden Sng is up there when it comes to local entertainment’s hottest young stars. With leading roles in romance dramas like Loving You (2020) just a year after signing with Mediacorp, he is one of the most visible actors under 30 on Channel 8.

Yet, he was snubbed at the Star Awards in both 2021 and 2022, with no nominations for popularity or performance awards. 

Headlines ran about how Sng was thinking of quitting acting because he was so dismayed by the lack of recognition – which he calls “clickbait” that still follows him.

He says: “I never actually said I was going to leave because I didn’t get nominated. Even to this day, I’m still getting flak for the article. People think I’m very haughty, and I’m from the strawberry generation to give up just because I didn’t get nominated.”

This year, however, Sng has finally cracked through. With his role as Gu Yuncong, the manipulated illegitimate son of a wealthy man in dark family tale The Unbreakable Bond, he has secured his first acting nomination for Best Actor, which he calls a “huge pat on the back”.

“The competition is quite tough this year and there are a lot of first-timers in the category. To me, a nomination is a win. I’m very grateful because I did put in quite a lot of effort for the role,” he says.

 

But nominations, adds Sng, are never the be-all and end-all of his acting career.

“My primary objective being in this line of work was initially to try out acting and find out more about it. Over time, it has become my desire to become better as an actor. In the time that I’m doing this, I want to show people that I am committed to acting as a craft. Nomination or not, that has no impact on my desire to continue to act,” he explains.

While Sng – who quit his job as a product consultant in 2019 to join Mediacorp – is dedicated to his craft, he feels he is not the most suited for the ostensibly glamorous job.

After all, he is a self-confessed homebody and “cat uncle” – during his phone interview with ST, he was at the groomer’s with his three cats to prepare them to look their best for a cat show.

“I still thrive better in a corporate world. Put me in a meeting room and ask me to strategise – I’m very happy. But that has nothing to do with my passion for acting. I may not be the most talented or suited for it, but I can still try to do it well.”

Sng certainly has plenty of chances to try. He is filming the drama Road To Riches with fellow male leads Jeremy Chan and Desmond Tan, and the cast of the upcoming Channel 8 blockbuster series were even given acting lessons by Hong Kong star Wayne Lai. 

Sng also shot local film-maker Eric Khoo’s series, a Taiwanese co-production called Hungry Souls: From Hell, With Love in 2022, and he is the lead in Seven Days, a heartwarming local movie about a spirit who accidentally occupies her brother’s body that opens in cinemas on May 12. 

He is also nominated for the Most Popular Rising Star award.

Sng, who began acting only in 2018, says: “It’s a strange feeling to be told you’re a rising star when you’re almost 30. But this award really puts things into perspective. I’m really very inexperienced compared with everyone else and I’m very happy to have achieved what I did in these few years. There’s so much more to do and I’m still in the relative infancy of my career as an actor – that gives me a lot of hope.”

The popularity award also gives him a chance to include his family in his career. He says that while his parents support him, they do not necessarily understand or agree with his decision to become an actor.

“With the popularity award, they can be more involved in their son’s work and career. I’m very glad I have the opportunity to involve them, be it by watching the show or voting and getting relatives to vote. As with most Chinese families, it’s about expressing love through acts of service and they want to be given a chance to show their love.”

With 39 contenders vying for just three Most Popular Rising Star trophies, the win is by no means easy to secure. 

Sng says: “I hope my fans pull through. It’s a collective effort and (my official fan club) ​​The Baeden Club is my strong pillar of support, as well as, hopefully, listeners of Love 97.2FM. I guest DJ-ed for a while there and I’m the only one from the Love 97.2FM family to be nominated for Rising Star.”

• Star Awards 2023 will air live on Sunday from 7pm on Channel 8 and Channel U, with a simulcast on mewatch and the Mediacorp Entertainment YouTube channel. The Walk Of Fame red carpet pre-show will air from 5 to 6.30pm.