When homegrown star Andie Chen moved to Taipei in January, it felt like we were losing something we couldn’t afford to lose: A young, local actor who was eager to sacrifice image for the sake of growth and maturity; whose performance visibly improved with every role; and who, most importantly — well, for us here at TODAY —could always be counted on to give a good interview.

What makes Chen interesting isn’t just his humour and honesty, but also the fact that he doesn’t even pretend to be your average Channel 8 actor. In fact, he is an extreme kind of guy. He doesn’t do things by halves: With him, it’s usually all or nothing. So when it comes to his career choices, his personality, his hobbies and even his love life, “extreme” just about sums it up.

Take, for instance, his road-less-travelled decision to live and work in Taiwan. “I always knew I wanted to learn more and experience more,” said the actor, who is back in Singapore for a three-month stint in order to work on Disclosed, an upcoming drama for Channel 8 that also stars Jesseca Liu.

According to Chen, life in Taiwan has been “comfortable”. “I did an idol drama and a few other smaller projects. And then I decided to fly overseas to backpack for a month. So, to be frank, I haven’t spent that much time there yet. And then I got this project and I really wanted to do it so I came back here.

“I’ll be back in Taipei in September. Taiwan is an amazing country to live in, the people are nice and everything is convenient. I met up with Nat (Ho) a few times and it’s extremely comfortable to have a fellow Singaporean (with you).”

EXTREMELY UNCONVENTIONAL

Stepping out of his comfort zone into a foreign country is his latest big move, but in his six years in the local industry, the Star Search 2007 winner has never made any secret of his preference for unconventional roles.

“Yes, I’ve always wanted to play extreme roles,” said Chen. “Just trying to escape from pure boredom, I guess. It’s boring, lah, playing ‘normal’. And no one’s normal.

“I want to be a different breed of actor who is not only doing stuff from MediaCorp, but stuff that suits the actor.”

That means no dull “perfect boyfriend” or yawn-worthy “flower boy” roles for this actor — fittingly, the roles that he feels suit him happen to be on extreme ends of the spectrum, like the martial arts practitioner who goes over to the dark side in Code Of Honour, or the comically awkward nerd in Joys Of Life.

“The kind of roles that I enjoy doing and can express to the best of my capabilities are either the very dark, very heavy, intense characters, or the almost sitcom-ish, over the top, exaggerated characters,” he said.

“The funny thing is that when I was doing Star Search, the judges were already saying that my strength was either towards the psychotic side or the crazy, wacky Jim Carrey thing. Me being me, I was like, ‘Yeah, right. What do you know?’ But after coming full circle, I’ve realised that they were right.”

EXTREMELY EMO

They say artistes are moody types and, personality-wise, Andie confesses to being subject to extreme mood swings, too.

“I’m a girl! I go from extremely happy one moment to completely closed off the next. And it happens a lot. Especially when my period — no, I’m just joking! I feel I can observe quite a lot of things from people and that affects me because I’m so sensitive. And emo. I’m very, very emo.”

And he is not averse to dispensing tough love to the people he knows. “I’m quite ruthless to my friends. For example, if they have a bad breakup or they’re whining about how miserable their life is. I’m like, ‘Eh, grow up. Deal with it. If you chose this road, then don’t complain’.”

But it’s a different story when it comes to dealing with himself. “Whenever I have emotional problems, I get completely drowned in them — especially in my love life. If I’m in love, it’s like nothing else in the world matters. I would give up everything. And when it doesn’t end well, it devastates me completely. I don’t tell anybody, except my brother. And he has heard it so many times that he doesn’t care any more.”

The single 28-year-old who said he is hankering to settle down, added: “I think I fall quite quickly in love — if I meet someone and it all feels right, I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah! I’ve found The One! I’m in love! Let’s get married and have kids and live happily forever!’ I’ll start imagining things. It affects my work completely. I think that’s my Achilles heel.”

EXTREMELY ADVENTUROUS

Chen appears to be incapable of doing anything in a moderate fashion. Even when going on vacation, his idea of a fun trip isn’t stopping at national monuments or going to well-worn destinations. He would rather backpack in places like Bosnia and Kosovo.

“I guess this is my criteria: If someone hears about it and goes, ‘What? Why do you want to go there?’ Then that’s where I want to go,” he said.

For example, he travelled through Albania, Serbia and Montenegro last month, and while in Albania, encountered a beggar who had asked for his half-eaten pastry. Chen gave him the pie, and the man gave it to his family. Their joy was so apparent that Chen later returned to give them a roast chicken.

“That suddenly put things into perspective — who I am and what kind of life I’m living. I’ve been taking from society for the past 28 years of my life, and I think it’s about time to give something back,” he said.

It is lessons like these that motivate Chen to travel regularly off the beaten track, even though he actually hates travelling.

“Yeah, it’s a bit contradictory. But sometimes there are things that you have to do or you know you should do,” he explained. “You must have heard this a million times, but travelling really makes you wiser. It’s very scary to be trapped in the same routine ... you get very, very distorted.”

That’s especially true if your life is lived in front of the camera. “Every time I come back to work, I realise how insane and warped my life is,” Chen mused. “One bad thing about it is that I keep backing into a smaller and smaller shell because more and more things around me don’t make me comfortable any more. Things like taking photos, press conferences, talking about myself. I used to love this stuff. But now I almost can’t (do it).”

It’s all part of the process of personal development, which he is acutely aware of. “Every time I look back (at myself), I can’t recognise that guy,” he said. “I always feel, ‘Oh, I’m so done with growing up, I’m so mature, I know my stuff and I know the values of life’. Six months later, it always crumbles. And the scary thing about it is, the more you learn, the less you know. Then you have to learn more.”

Disclosed is set to air from Oct 28, at 9pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 8.

Credits

Photos: Alex Westcott

Hair: Junz Loke, Passion Hair Salon

Makeup: Zennie Casann (www.zen-makeup.com) using La Biosthetique