Gavin Teo spent over two months in 2025 filming in Taiwan for his upcoming drama See You At 11pm, and one scene struck a chord with him.
The supernatural romance-fantasy series is a Singapore-Taiwan co-production supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and Taipei Film Commission, and follows a student with the ability to see spirits.
The Malaysia-born actor plays Yang Zhenghao, an 18-year-old Taiwanese high school student who is a “loyal and protective friend”.
In a recent interview with AsiaOne at the Asia TV Forum & Market, he recalled one scene where he had to “cry really badly”.
“In that scene, [Zhenghao’s father] was in a coma in a hospital and I fell asleep next to him. We both entered the same dream where Zhenghao’s late mum is in,” said Gavin.
The 31-year-old added that he was worried about this scene: “I had to really cry as Zhenghao resented his dad because of his mother’s death, and he really misses his mother.”
But he tapped into his own experience.
“My mum passed away in 2021, and I really wanted to dream of her, so this was a really good opportunity for me to fulfil the wish that I had for the longest time,” he said.
“In that scene I really bawled my eyes out and felt those emotions.”
He recalled it was completed in around 1.5 hours over two or three takes.
Part of the filming took place in an abandoned school building. When asked if anything strange had happened while filming the supernatural drama, he said nothing out of the ordinary happened.
“The crew brought in monks and priests to bless the area to make sure everything is safe and nothing will interrupt us,” added Gavin.
This was done before any sensitive scene to ensure they “don’t offend anything”.
‘I forced myself to interact more with Taiwanese people’
Gavin shared that his time in Taiwan was spent on script-reading sessions, acting classes, as well as bonding sessions with the cast and filming.
This helped him with one of his “main problems” – adopting the Taiwanese accent.
“The way we speak here in Singapore is very different from Taiwan… I forced myself to interact more with Taiwanese people and acclimatise myself with the environment. Eventually I felt like my accent slowly became tuned to how they speak,” he explained.
He also recalled how one of his Taiwanese colleagues drove him out of Taipei to Yilan for a trip.
“There’s a beach and he brought us there to surf. That was a really nice memory,” he said.
In turn, Gavin became the “tour guide” for the Taiwanese cast for scenes filmed in Singapore as part of an overseas school competition trip in the drama.
“They had very limited time in Singapore, so on the first or second night they were here, I just quickly drove them around. We touched on Clarke Quay, Marina Bay Sands and then I brought them out to drink. Just showed them around, they did the same when I was there in Taiwan,” he shared.
See You At 11pm stars Taiwanese actors Liu Hsiu-fu and Chloe Xiang, as well as local actors Hong Ling, Mark Lee, James Seah and Jernelle Oh. It is pending a release date.
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