Kids can wait, say young Lion Moms actors

SINGAPORE — They say never work with children and animals. And after working on the Channel 5 series Lion Moms, Joshua Tan, Vanessa Vanderstraaten and newcomer Russell Ong just might consider putting that clause in their contracts.

In Lion Moms, Vanderstraaten plays Min Yi, a single mother to a six-year-old son. She has two suitors: Housemate Peng Koo (Ong) and former schoolmate Marcus (Tan), who also happens to be the unwitting father of her child.

It was not that working with child actor Keller Toh was difficult — it was just that playing parents made them envision what having their own children might be like. And it was not a pretty picture.

“It really sunk in one day when he kept calling me ‘daddy’ even off-screen. Like, ‘Daddy, I want to use the toilet. Daddy, I’m hungry’,” Tan recounted. “It gets to you. I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. So ... contraception’,” he said with a laugh. “I do love kids. Just not mine. For now.”

“I’m not ready, man,” said Ong, simply.

Vanderstraaten agreed, smiling wryly: “My mom had me at 36 and my brother at 39. She took her time. She got married late in life. And I think I’m going to do the same.”

She just might have the sweetest deal of the three “lion mums” that the show revolves around, though. Nurul Aini plays an ambitious career woman with an army major husband, and Bernice Liu plays a seemingly perfect stay-at-home mum whose husband is a philanderer. But Vanderstraaten gets two strapping 25-year-olds laying roses at her feet — and one of them is frequently topless. That would be the housemate played by Ong.

Tan, who had his fair share of shirtless scenes in the Ah Boys To Men movies, joked that he had opted out. “I banned them from taking off my clothes. I was like, ‘No. You’ve got to write that in the contract, otherwise I’m not taking it up, I think I want to progress in a different direction. But Russ — don’t get me started, man. He’s got it.”

Definitely no dadbod anywhere in the future for Ong, then? “Well, maybe when I’m a dad,” he mused — which, after this experience, will probably be a long way off.

Catch Lion Moms starting Sept 14 at 10pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 5.