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‘All of us have regrets’: Rui En

SINGAPORE — Beleaguered actress Rui En’s latest drama, If Only I Could, is a fantasy story about what might happen if you had the opportunity to go back in time and try to change your life for the better.

SINGAPORE — Beleaguered actress Rui En’s latest drama, If Only I Could, is a fantasy story about what might happen if you had the opportunity to go back in time and try to change your life for the better.

It’s very apt, if you think about what she just went through. The actress had recently hit the headlines for being involved in an accident, in which her car hit a parked motorcycle.

At the press conference for the show on Tuesday (May 17), the actress volunteered this sentiment: “Who wouldn’t want to have a second chance and go back and correct some wrongs or things you didn’t do right? This is especially meaningful for me right now.”

When asked what she might do differently if she could re-live the day of the incident, she said hesitantly: “Maybe we shouldn’t ... I mean, the main thing is, I don’t want this (show) to get overtaken by my personal situation.

“I mean, we’ve worked very hard as a team and I don’t want their sacrifices and their efforts to be obscured by my thing,” she added.

 

Rui En stars opposite Andie Chen, Elvin Ng and Paige Chua in the drama.

As for facing the media for the first time since the incident — and after publicly apologising at the Star Awards last month — the actress thanked the reporters for being so understanding “because I think they have let me off the hook”.

“I’ve said all that I can say about the incident,” Rui En added. “I’m very, very happy that they respected the fact that I can’t discuss (the case) at this point. I’ve been so thankful that they haven’t made things difficult for me.”

Still, one might get a sense of how she feels from what she said.

“All of us have regrets, all of us have made mistakes, all of us have things that we would like to go back and change. I think everyone in this room would jump at the chance. So that’s why I think the theme of this drama is so universal and so relatable,” she said.

While watching clips of her scenes during the press conference, Rui En became teary-eyed. “It was a really tough shoot,” she explained. “Emotionally, it affected me a lot because the scenes were very heavy and very sad. Everything was just so negative. I did feel very depressed at times ... Just feeling like there was a black cloud over my head all day. I had to have the mindset, ‘My life sucks. Why is heaven doing this to me? Can you let me go back?’”

Her usual mindset, she said, is “not nearly as serious”.

In recent weeks, while coping with the incident, she added, she has been feeling better. She dealt with the stress with the help of “love from people around me”.

She added: “I realised that I need to appreciate the people around me more, and I learned that I need to give them back all that love.”

Going through hardships, she noted, helps one mature. “And when you mature, your acting will just follow.” She intends to improve her acting skills “by being a better person”, she said. “That’s my wish.”

 

Watch If Only I Could starting May 31, weekdays at 9pm on Mediacorp TV Channel 8.

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