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Jesseca Liu tries her hand at scriptwriting

SINGAPORE — Jesseca Liu is not just a pretty face — she’s now also a scriptwriter.

The actress has co-written Who Killed The Lead, a whodunnit Web drama for XinMSN, together with Ng Lee Ling, the story planner for dramas like Show Hand, Marry Me and Served H.O.T.

Besides playing a key role behind the scenes, Liu also stars in the drama as the director of a theatre group. When the lead actor (played by James Seah) is found dead, a detective (Elvin Ng) is called in to figure out which of the troupe members killed him.

The drama consists of four nine-minute webisodes and is produced by WaWa Pictures, with Molby Low as executive producer.

Jesseca’s involvement came about when, three years ago, she wrote her own movie script, a romantic comedy. “I showed it to a few directors including Molby, and Lee Ling,” Liu said. “They probably felt I could write, so they invited me to participate in this. They felt the dialogue that I had written was quite exciting, so they asked me to be a scriptwriter.”

That first movie script eventually got shelved. “I think I wasn’t mature enough and there were some imperfections,” Liu said. “Last year, I saw some movie scripts that were similar, so it can’t be produced because it’s not fresh any more.”

But, she said: “I’ve always wanted to become a director and turn my own scripts into films. I’ve always enjoyed being creative. Before I started writing scripts, I wrote on my blog and contributed articles regularly to weekly publications.”

The 35-year-old said this project is “for testing the waters”. “It felt very fresh and very challenging,” she said. “Detective thrillers are not what I’m good at — it’s definitely not what I would do myself — so I think it counts as training. It’s not easy to write; there are twists in the plot. So, it’s definitely a big challenge. I think the hard part is how to make each character different and how to give them life by giving them a back-story.”

But she is definitely enjoying the writer’s experience of playing God: “The fun part is that I can make other people do stuff that I usually wouldn’t do.”

How does writing compare to acting? “I think right now I prefer scriptwriting,” she said. “I’ve been acting for eight or nine years. Scriptwriting is very new to me and there are many aspects of it that I haven’t explored. It’s very different.”

Catch Who Killed The Lead starts from May 5, Mondays and Wednesdays on http://xin.msn.com/. From May 25, catch it on Sundays at 8.30pm on MediaCorp TV Channel U.

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