Mark Lee eats beauty supplements to play drag queen in Number 2

When filming the sequel to the drag queen comedy Number 1 (2020), aptly titled Number 2, leading man Mark Lee went all out to prettify himself.

The 56-year-old Singaporean star took white tomato beauty supplements and put on plenty of facial masks to make sure he could look fresh for the follow-up movie.

And it worked. The make-up artist for both films commented that his skin “looked better”, Lee tells The Straits Times ahead of a press conference for the film at live music venue Simply Live by Tin Box at Clarke Quay on Jan 15.

Still, the veteran actor felt his age. He filmed Number 2 when he was 54, but shot the first one – about a middle-aged man named Chow Chee Beng who stumbles into the art of drag to support his wife and children -– in his late 40s.

He admits: “There’s definitely a difference (in energy).”

Opening in Singapore cinemas on Jan 28, Number 2 – which was largely set in Thailand – took the cast to the South-east Asian country for a month.

And the first 11 days were physically exhausting shoots – four days of gang fight scenes followed by a week of dance and performance sequences in drag, complete with high heels and wigs.

“Every day after the shoot, I would go back to my hotel room and just want to lie down. I was so tired I struggled to get myself up to take a shower,” Lee recalls.

In the sequel, he reprises his role as a part-time drag queen.

Singaporean stage actor Darius Tan, Malaysian actor and Number 2’s screenwriter Jaspers Lai, Taiwanese transgender actress Kiwebaby Chang and Malaysian actor Gadrick Chin join Lee as the other members of his drag queen troupe, The Queens.

The film weaves in Chee Beng’s struggles in parenting his rebellious son Mason (Estovan Reizo Cheah) with the troupe’s journey to Thailand to take part in a drag contest, where they encounter local thugs.

 

In one scene, Lee has to carry teenage actor Cheah on his back on a dark road.

“My waist isn’t the best because of an old injury, so there were some discussions about whether we should cheat and somehow use angles to fake the scene. But I didn’t know how to fake-carry someone, so I went ahead and carried him. This sequel is definitely more challenging, physically,” Lee says.

The drag is also bigger and better this time.

Number 1 nabbed a Golden Horse Award for make-up and costume design in 2020. Lee says the costume and make-up team wanted to live up to the accolade in the sequel, and gave the cast heavy headgear and elaborate costumes to wear. The actor often sported heels as high as five inches, and in one instance, wore seven-inch platforms for a performance.

Lee received a Best Actor Golden Horse nomination for the first film, marking a highlight of his three-decade acting career. But he says he “will not be disappointed” if Number 2 does not earn him another nod.

“At this stage in my career, I’m not doing things for nominations. I want to choose my scripts with care and do the roles well, and I hope that audiences will go to the cinemas, watch the movies and feel that it is worth their time,” he says.

Naming some of his other recent local film projects, Lee says: “I choose different roles and try different things. I’m always very happy when audiences tell me they liked watching (2022 crime noir) Geylang, (2024 period film) Wonderland or Number 2.”

For his latest work, he went all out for the promotion of the film. At the press conference, he was dressed in a tight cheongsam-inspired dress, with gold neck rings, gold headgear and red high heels, which made him stand at over 2m tall.

His homemaker-wife Catherine Ng, 51, and their three children aged 11 to 16 seem to be coping better with the shock of seeing Lee in drag.

Lee recalls how his youngest child, Calynn, cried when she saw him like that for the first movie when she was a small child.

“Now, all my kids are older, so they understand a bit better what I’m doing at work when they drop by to visit,” he says.

While this is already his second round, Lee still feels inferior next to the real-life Thai drag queens who are featured in Number 2 – they not only look good but are also consummate professionals.

“They’re so used to performing in drag, it’s as if they don’t feel the weight of all the make-up and costumes,” he says.

But there is one person he feels absolutely confident he can beat in his drag get-up – his co-host on Love 972 radio show The Breakfast Quintet, actor-presenter Marcus Chin. In the film, the 70-year-old plays a retired drag queen.

Lee jokes about the local entertainer’s on-screen transformation. “He looks a bit like a dancing frog because he has thin legs and a big body. I think I’m much prettier than him.”

Number 2 opens in Singapore cinemas on Jan 28.