After many years of hard work, Pierre Png has finally been able to just sit back, relax, and enjoy “being sheltered, being spoiled”, and being “the boss of the house” over the past month or two. It’s a nice little silver lining to the coronavirus-fighting #StayHome order.

And boy, has life been good for the 46-year-old actor. For instance, his wife of 16 years, Andrea De Cruz, has been whipping up sumptuous meals for him and exposing him to new culinary delights, such as the plant-based burger he recently Instagrammed.

While the self-professed meat lover said that it took a lot of convincing before he was willing to try it, he ended up liking it so much that he gave it the “100 points” emoji and a triple thumbs up.

“After eating that I was like, okay, now I can get back to my ‘real’ burger, but as soon as I bit into the meat, the taste was so strong and I almost felt like it was ‘unnecessary’,” Pierre told 8days.sg over the phone yesterday (Apr 15). “I was taken aback and thought, I could do this, you know!”

Needless to say, it’s been a time of self-discovery and self-reflection for Pierre, and not just when it comes to his food preferences.

“Now that you have so much more time, you realise you can prioritise the people you may have been neglecting,” he mused. “Phone calls with my parents are now a very treasured time, though of course nothing beats being able to hug my mum or speak to my dad in person.”

According to Pierre, he hasn’t seen his parents since the time Singaporeans were advised to stay indoors, which was about a month ago, but he acknowledges that it’s a necessary sacrifice.

“I do call and ask if there’s anything they need, but they say they’re self-sufficient, so there’s no excuse for me to buy something to leave at their doors while trying to catch a glimpse of them,” he chuckled. “But safe distancing is something to be done for the good of the country, so we should all play our part.”

Speaking of safe distancing, some of you may have seen the photo Pierre posted on April 11, which was taken from his friend’s Facebook and shows an alarmingly large crowd gathering at a park (see the post below).

That’s four days after the nation’s circuit breaker measures officially kicked in, which, by the way, was apparently enough time to turn everyone into an avid jogger. And judging from Pierre’s wordy and exclamation mark-laden caption, it’s clear that he was pretty ticked off by the pic (with good reason, we might add).

“I was like, what is happening here? Are the numbers [of cases] not enough for you to pay attention? The numbers will only go down if we do our part!” he sighed. “I understand that everyone has different ways of dealing with being cooped up at home, but we cannot assume that nothing will happen to us, or think, ‘It’s just for a while what.’”

What really gets his goat, Pierre went on to say, is the “ignorance and selfishness” of those who refuse to take safe distancing guidelines seriously.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the best and the worst in people, but what angers me is that you can do good by helping others or being responsible, but when a selfish person goes out, catches the virus, and spreads it to others, there is a bigger and more harmful impact.”

Another concern of Pierre’s is that there won't be enough masks for those who really need it. A few hours after our conversation, he sent us a WhatsApp message introducing us to a reusable respirator called the Gill Mask, which was invented by a Singaporean company to combat the global mask shortage.

“I’d been thinking hard about the surgical masks that everyone is using now and often wonder how wasteful it is to throw them away after each use,” he said. “This respirator is really cool and allows six times the regular usage of a typical mask! I hope everyone will look into using this so there’ll be more masks out there for people to use instead of throwing them away after one use. I just got mine today! [Grinning emoji]”

Someone should make this guy an ambassador for responsible behaviour in the time of COVID-19.

8 DAYS: Have you and Andrea been coping well with the circuit breaker?
PIERRE PNG: It’s been really good at home, actually! I hear of people starting to quarrel with their wives, but we’re still okay! So far so good.

Wow, so no fights at all? What’s the secret?
We’ve had a few “discussions”, but nothing that couldn’t be solved. I’m quite proud of myself, actually! (Laughs) I think the secret is practising what you already know, which is giving each other space and observing each other, and immersing yourself physically and spiritually in conversations. Whenever I’m out with my wife or other family members, I put everyone’s phones at the end of the table, and whoever reaches for their phone for no valid reason ends up paying for the meal. It’s a good practice!

So what have you been doing at home all day?
I’ve practised guitar, I’ve done workouts with my friend Allan Wu on Instagram, I’ve started to observe what I eat, I’ve played with my dog, and I’ve finally had time to tend to my plants, which I kinda stopped doing. I have a frangipani tree, a mango tree, and pots of Sansevierias, which are very good for purifying air.

We saw that you and your wife went out to distribute food before the circuit breaker was imposed.
I strongly believe in giving back to society, and this also resonates with the car club I’m in, Land Rover Owners Singapore. We have a committee that goes around looking for worthy causes or organisations that need assistance, so we teamed up with Willing Hearts to deliver food to homes. The car that I drive can accommodate a lot of things and carry heavy stuff, so that’s how we got involved to lend a helping hand.

Did anything interesting happen while you were out delivering the food?
Things were a bit sensitive this time round because we had to do temperature screenings, wear masks, and were given strict instructions to not have any contact and just leave the food at the door, so there were no actual interactions with the residents whatsoever.

It did open my eyes to the living conditions of some people. Sometimes a door would be open and you take a peek inside and see that there are some who are not as fortunate as you are. So there’s always a warm and “cold” or sad feeling when doing charity. You count your blessings, but at the same time you also want to do more. I believe life is meaningless if you just hoard everything and don’t share what you have with others.

On to some work-related topics: Your latest drama My Guardian Angels is currently airing. What was it like working on the drama?
I was very nervous, filming with Ah Jie ( Zoe Tay) and all. I grew up watching her [on TV] and I’ve only worked with her a few times, but I’d never starred opposite her and this time, I was her love interest! So that was very scary for me but at the same time, I tried to put up a front and act like I was “on par” with her, but cannot lah. She’s just up there.

What did you learn about Zoe while working with her?
She’s a real snacker. She would pretend to buy snacks for everybody and end up being the only one there eating. (Laughs) But she’s such a giving person. She buys food and drinks for everybody and she’s just very thoughtful lah! She’s like a da jie (big sister) to the younger ones and a very good role model for the rest of us.

Did you face any difficulties or challenges on set?
No, man. I’d like to say that I’m the easiest person to work with — some people may beg to differ but in my mind I’m making myself the easiest to work with — although I can be very particular about my performance and my character. Apart from that, I’m quite chin chai (easy-going)!

My Guardian Angels airs weeknights, 9pm on Channel 8.
Catch episodes in advance on meWATCH.

Photos: Pierre Png/Instagram, Mediacorp