Give that dog a bone

SINGAPORE – There’s a showbiz saying, “Never work with children and animals”. However, Rebecca Lim and Tay Ping Hui would be the first to disagree. The two actors play a married pair whose wedded bliss has run into trouble in one episode of the upcoming MediaCorp TV Channel U drama, Love?, a six-episode series that tells the diverse love stories of six different couples. And when we dropped by the set yesterday, they were happily fussing over canine actor Flapper, who plays the “glue” that holds them tenuously together.

“I think this episode is about Flapper, actually,” quipped Tay, whose scene with Lim that evening involved a quarrel after extramarital affairs are discovered on both their parts. He said the dog is a stand-in for the child they don’t have. “He gets traumatised when we argue; he desires for us to be together. He makes us realise that we should give each other a chance.”

Working with Flapper, Tay said, is “not difficult at all” because “Flapper is really well trained. His trainer is really good.”

The only potential downside perhaps is that the Labrador might steal the show. “Ping Hui and I joke that it’s better to leave Flapper out of our shots, because no one’s going to be looking at us acting anyway,” laughed Lim, who took endless photos and videos of her canine co-star. “He has more one-take-wonders than I do. I NG (“no good” - to describe a bad take) more times than Flapper does!”

In contrast, her human co-star is more difficult to deal with. “The last time Ping Hui and I worked together was on the Channel U drama, Start Up! I played someone who really liked him but he had a wife. This time it’s more sombre. So, on the first day, I couldn’t get used to it and I kept laughing. And it doesn’t help that he cracks a lot of jokes and does a lot of silly things right before the take,” Lim said. “But it’s been a great experience and I think the chemistry is very fresh.”

Did he tell her stories about married life to help her get into character? “I can’t share any of it,” she guffawed.

Tay said: “I’ve always enjoyed working with Rebecca. She’s down to earth, at this point. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – she will be, if not she’s pretty much near, the next big thing ... It’s enjoyable working with her because it’s about the scene, not about the person.”

And certainly not about the dog. right?

Catch Love? starting Feb 24 at 9pm on MediaCorp TV Channel U.