My Fair Princess team tried to replace Ruby Lin as she was 'so ugly'

Taiwanese actress Ruby Lin came to fame for her role Xia Ziwei in the drama My Fair Princess (1998 to 1999).

It is hard to imagine that she was almost replaced as she was deemed as not pretty enough for the show, the 47-year-old told talk show Hear U Out host Quan Yi Fong.

"They said I wasn't good-looking," said Lin. 

"I was 21 during the filming of My Fair Princess. But when I was around 20, I played other characters' daughters or sisters in my other works in Taiwan, so I looked rather plain.

"I heard that one of the bosses said, 'This girl is so ugly! How can she be the lead actress?'"

Lin claimed the boss asked renowned novelist and producer Chiung Yao to have her replaced even though they were two weeks into the shoot. She also thought crew members treated her differently, as if they felt sorry for her.

But the tension eased after Lin bonded with the crew and was told by her manager that "everything is fine".

When asked about her acting experience in Beijing, 49-year-old Lin told Quan: "Their accents were different and actors such as Vicki Zhao, Fan Bingbing and Zhang Tielin were professionally trained."

"Crying on cue took some practice in the beginning. But I was told later that I didn't look beautiful enough while crying," she said, adding that the feedback on her crying included "tears were flowing individually" and "the tears fell in streaks that split apart".

To practise, Lin thought of home and "the moment I started crying, I faced the mirror". She eventually figured out how to "look pretty even while crying".

"That also helped me forget what made me sad in the first place. It was a different way to calm myself."

After a couple of seasons of My Fair Princess, Lin was tickled by the request to cry on cue for her cameo appearance as Yuhe in the sequel New My Fair Princess (2011).

"When it came to that scene, I could not cry." 

But Lin was more confident then and told herself that it was alright.