Bryan Wong has ‘freedom to be mean’ on You Can Be An Angel Too

Greetings and salutations, fellow stargazers! This is your Showbiz Sista picking up some good vibes from the set of the medical-themed drama, You Can Be An Angel Too – and it’s all because of Bryan Wong’s bad vibes.

Bryan plays a nasty nurse who goes by his initials, “XYZ” (which stand for Xie Yao Zong). What his fellow nurses don’t know is that deep down, he’s hiding a heart of gold. But before they find out the truth, Bryan is having a whale of a time spouting outrageously caustic lines.

So far, Rebecca Lim has been feeling the brunt of his wrath the most – their characters are constantly at loggerheads, Bryan said. “Rebecca has got smiling eyes and she’s such a cheerful and good girl, but unfortunately in the show, her face has to look like she has a very bitter personality. I’ll say things like, ‘What are your eyes for? Just to fill the voids in your head?’ When you say it in Mandarin, it sounds meaner,” he chortled. “Or, ‘Your head is so small but amazingly, there are brains in it.’”

The thrill of being Mr Nasty is what’s keeping Bryan enthusiastic about his role in spite of filming from seven in the morning to midnight. “Being yourself is a very tiring affair. The perk of being an actor is that you get to be someone else. You get to do and say things you don’t normally say,” he confided, with some measure of glee. When he’s in character, “I can just suan anyone. It’s just the freedom to be mean – and I’m not going to be punished for it. They just have to smile and accept it in good stride. That is, like, so cool.”

He has so many nasty one-liners that his fellow cast members have joked that “there should be a book called ‘1001 Mean Lines From XYZ’. I even ask them for suggestions: ‘What else can I say that is even meaner?’ It’s such fun. Sometimes when I spring something on them and they are caught completely off guard, their expressions are amazing. Everyone’s anticipating what the next bomb I’m going to drop on them will be. And rolling their eyes.”

But while he’s having a jolly time on set, Bryan isn’t in any danger of taking the meanness home with him. “It’s very tiring to be mean because you really have to crack your brain,” he said. “The worst part is, I like to laugh a lot. And before I say that mean line, I’m on the brink of laughter because it’s just so mean that I’m almost biting my tongue before I say it.”

Looks like it ain’t easy being mean – though you could’ve fooled us, Bryan. You Can Be An Angel Too debuts Jan 5 at 9pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 8. Showbiz Sista, signing out. Live long and pop corn!