He may be one of local showbiz’s most revered and beloved stars today, but once upon a time, Li Nanxing, 56, was a confused student who struggled with his lines in acting class.

Yes, we are talking about the same person who isn’t just a three-time Star Awards Best Actor winner, but has managed to achieve pretty much every local actor’s dream of expanding their career overseas with projects in countries like China and Taiwan and is highly regarded as an idol and role model to many.

However, in the first episode of new talk show The Inner Circle, we learned that he needed a lot of extra help during his acting course ‘cos of his poor Chinese skills at that time. “I couldn’t understand half of what they were saying!” he exclaimed.

Before we continue, here’s a brief overview of The Inner Circle: Every Wednesday for 10 weeks (including Nanxing’s episode, which just aired), a different All-Time Favourite Artiste recipient will come on to the show to talk about their showbiz journeys. Each ep will also feature surprise appearances from three individuals who played significant roles in their lives.

In Nanxing’s case, one of his surprise guests was veteran actor Richard Low (we’ll leave it to you to find out who the other two were).

As it turns out, Richard was also in the same acting course as Nanxing. Well, kinda. You see, according to Richard, Nanxing was placed in a separate class for students who needed to improve their language skills, and the former was assigned to be the latter’s ‘mini teacher’.

Richard probably thought he had his work cut out for him. He admitted that one of his first impressions of Nanxing was that he was someone who just likes to goof around thanks to an activity where each student had to take turns reciting a poetic-sounding paragraph.

Instead of taking it seriously, Nanxing started laughing uncontrollably. He explained to host Guo Liang that he had found the way his classmates delivered the lines, which they did with all kinds of dramatic gestures (it is an acting lesson, after all), “very strange”.

Fortunately, he eventually decided to buck up and went to Richard for ‘tuition’ to learn how to read properly. Then, in 1986, he finally made his drama debut in Crossroads, but the filming process was less than smooth-sailing for Nanxing, who was in his early 20s back then.

“In the ‘80s, there were a lot of Hongkong directors, but I couldn’t understand them ‘cos they spoke Cantonese,” Nanxing recalled.

However, he could certainly tell when they were angry at him, mostly when he made a mistake by doing the wrong thing or standing in the wrong position. “They would read out the script in Cantonese and I could only try to guess what they wanted me to do. It was so tough!”

Of course, Nanxing doesn’t have much trouble hitting the mark these days — even under very challenging circumstances. Bringing up a scene in 2013’s The Journey: A Voyage where Pierre Png’s villain tries to kill his character by pushing him into quicksand, Nanxing shared a very disgusting piece of behind-the-scenes trivia.

Since he certainly couldn’t film in actual quicksand, the crew had to dig a deep pit in the jungle and fill it with water and mud to make one. However, it didn’t look realistic enough, so they added flour into the mix. By the time they were done, it was already dark and they were forced to resume shooting the next day.

“When we went back, the pit was crawling with all sorts of insects!” he recalled. “But how could we waste more time digging another pit? So I said I would just go ahead. I completed the scene in one take and my entire body was covered in bites, but that’s what we have to do as actors, isn’t it?”

As gross as that was, Nanxing doesn’t consider that scene the filthiest one he’s ever done. 8days.sg had a chance to catch up with him for a quick 10-minute chat on the set of The Inner Circle, and he told us that in the past, they used to film in kampong areas with pig farms and chicken farms, where it was common to see — and smell — manure all over the place. “Now that was really dirty,” he said.

Nanxing’s talent and dedication to his craft have certainly earned him a lot of fans, which explains how he managed to ‘graduate’ so quickly from the Top 10 Most Popular Male Artistes race in 2004 after racking up 10 consecutive wins.

Some of his supporters have been around for so long, he told us that he has seen them go from being students to having their own families. He also recognises a few who always show up when at public events to support him, although he usually tells them there’s no need to be so enthusiastic if they have other more important things to do.

Unfortunately, like so many other artistes, his chance to gain even more fans overseas was unceremoniously interrupted by COVID-19. Nanxing was originally supposed to travel to China to shoot two dramas, but they’ve had to be postponed til the middle of this year, or whenever the pandemic situation improves.

Quite a shame, considering the good feedback he received for his performance in last year’s Chinese drama Everyone Wants To Meet You, which was produced by his friend Vicki Zhao.

But the Ah Ge’s taking it all in his stride. “I want to continue absorbing new experiences in different countries and environments so I can learn and improve even more.”

Photos: Kelvin Chia, meWATCH, Richard Low/Instagram

Watch Li Nanxing’s full episode of The Inner Circle here.

The Inner Circle airs Wednesdays at 8pm on Ch 8. Episodes are also available on demand for free on meWATCH.