Back in the early noughties, Celest Chong was one of the few local stars who managed to find success as a model, singer and actress overseas, but her showbiz journey was no walk in the park.

During a recent interview on #JustSwipeLah, Celest, 44, got candid about her early years as an actress and the challenges she faced working abroad. She was based in Toronto the past 13 years and returned home for good recently to take care of her 80-year-old mum.

Celest began her career as a model at 14, before making her acting debut in 2000 in Eric Khoo’s Stories About Love.

She went on to star in 2001 Mediacorp drama You Light Up My Life and despite being relatively new to acting, landed one of the lead roles in 2002 ATV period comedy All’s Well, Ends Well alongside Hong Kong actors Marco Lo, Patrick Tam, and Theresa Lee.

She also starred in the 2002 TV adaptation of Feel 100% and its sequel, which had a cast that included Daniel Chan, Alex Fong, Rain Li, Niki Chow, Miriam Yeung, and Ronald Cheng.

Celest with Ronald Cheng, Daniel Chan, Rain Lee and Niki Chow in Feel 100%

While she loves comedies and had an enjoyable time on set, she admitted that filming wasn’t easy.

Due to the hectic filming schedule, pulling all-nighters in Hong Kong was very common, and Celest would survive on an hour, sometimes 30 minutes, of sleep each day. This went on for three months.

“We had to film 18 scenes in a day [Ed: the norm in Singapore is less than 10 scenes] and were constantly in a rush… And after a long day’s work, I couldn’t go to sleep ‘cos I had to learn my lines for the next day,” Celest lamented.

It didn't help that Cantonese was not one of her main languages and she struggled to remember her lines.

“I just kept memorising my script. I would recite my lines in the shower. Even when I was doing my hair and make-up [on set], I was still at it,” she recalled.

Despite the lack of sleep, Celest was full of energy on set. She would catch some shut-eye between scenes and developed the ability to sleep anywhere.

“If there was a scene that didn’t require me, I would immediately find a chair and sleep. I could sleep anywhere, even on the floor. It was good training. After that I could sleep anywhere and could doze off immediately,” she said.

Celest admitted that there were many times when she felt like giving up, but it was not an option.

It's not uncommon to see Celest like this on set

While Celest never thought of venturing overseas, the dramas opened more doors for her and she was subsequently offered opportunities to star in Taiwan and China productions.

According to Celest, she was usually the only actor from Singapore and would be cast in the lead role. This, however, did not sit well with some actors and many times, they would "stir up trouble". 

“They would be like, ‘Where did this person come from? Why did she suddenly come and be the lead actress?’” said Celest. “But it’s okay, I just did my job as an actress. That was just a transition period, after it passed, everyone got along and became friends.”

Photos: Celeste Chong/Facebook, JustSwipeLah

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