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Jayley Woo hopes her new role will be a breakthrough role

SINGAPORE – For all the pain that playing an underaged prostitute in the coming MediaCorp TV Channel 8 drama, Tiger Mum, brought Jayley Woo, it also brought her an equal amount of pleasure. The drama stars Huang Biren as a prison warden who has to deal with her new beau’s (Yao Wen Long) four out-of-hand children, played by Julie Tan, Ian Fang, Aloysius Pang and Bonnie Loo. Woo plays Abigail, Pang’s love interest who happens to be a 17-year-old lady of the night with the requisite heart of gold.

Jayley Woo goes red in Tiger Mum. Photo: Channel 8

Jayley Woo goes red in Tiger Mum. Photo: Channel 8

SINGAPORE – For all the pain that playing an underaged prostitute in the coming MediaCorp TV Channel 8 drama, Tiger Mum, brought Jayley Woo, it also brought her an equal amount of pleasure. The drama stars Huang Biren as a prison warden who has to deal with her new beau’s (Yao Wen Long) four out-of-hand children, played by Julie Tan, Ian Fang, Aloysius Pang and Bonnie Loo. Woo plays Abigail, Pang’s love interest who happens to be a 17-year-old lady of the night with the requisite heart of gold.

Abigail’s tragic backstory of being forced into the trap of prostitution to feed her family weighed heavily on Woo. “During that period of filming, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, sometimes. I could feel her stress and pain,” the actress said. “On some days, I just couldn’t look in the mirror and say, ‘You did really well today.’ I mean, I felt like I did not have any self-esteem to speak of at all. Some days I just cried myself to sleep – for the character, lah.” Woo hopes playing her will liberate her from being trapped in repetitive bit parts. “All the roles I had been getting were someone’s sister or some rebellious kid,” she said. “There was an article that said, ‘Up until now, Jayley Woo has not had a representative work.’ Although this is not a main character, I hope this will lead to something.”

And there was a perk to playing Abigail, too: Woo discovered that actually, redheads have more fun. Although the producers had wanted her to go blonde, she decided to dye her hair a deep burgundy. (She has since gone back to dark hair.)

“I think things were a lot better when I was a redhead,” she mused. “Red hair gives off a vibe of energy that you can’t really feel when you’re a brunette. People treat you differently. When I talked to friends who were guys, they were friendlier – maybe they thought I was more open to stuff because of my hair colour.”

She liked the colour so much she almost didn’t get rid of it. “I had a lot of moments when I really, didn’t want to go dark ever again. The red quite suited my skin tone and it made me look fairer. I like being fair!”

It was Lucille Ball who said, “Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall in love with a gorgeous redhead”, and although Pang’s character falls for Woo in the show; in real life, it’s a different thing altogether. “I don’t think (Pang) can be seduced,” she said, laughing. “Unless your name is ‘acting’. Then I think, yeah, maybe you can try.”

Catch Tiger Mum starting April 2, weekdays at 9pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 8.

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