A scene of Annette Lee and Xander Pang making out in the local film Dream Stall was not something we had expected.
In an interview with AsiaOne yesterday (May 21), Annette recalled the struggles behind directing her first movie on top of being the lead actress.
“One of the hardest things actually turned out to be doing the romance scenes, because a lot of it is not in what is being said, but what is unsaid,” she reflected.
“We realised while editing my scenes with Xander (Pang) that if we just hold on to how he looks at me for an extra second, it means one thing, while another five seconds means a whole other thing… 80 per cent of the conversations in the editing room were about my scenes with him.”
The 33-year-old plays Enya, a top university graduate who returns from the United Kingdom to salvage her mother’s bak kut teh stall after her father Ah Lee (Mark Lee) decides to close it behind her back.
She crosses paths with Preston (Xander), a popular food documentary YouTuber, resorting to using his aid to help her struggling business.
In the process, Enya and Preston also fall in love and at one point, she moves in with him after being left with nowhere to stay.
When we asked Annette and Xander, 25, about their intimate scene, they didn’t shy away from the topic at all and got down to the technicalities of it.
Annette’s conversations with the post-production team revealed that the duo took 11 tries to finalise the scene, and she added to us: “The most difficult part about doing the intimate scenes wasn’t about the intimacy, but that we had to do five changes of emotions in less than a minute within a single take and I was like, ‘Why did I write this?’
“When we went about it technically, it was a very difficult scene to execute. We had to go from physically aroused to awkward to guilty to comedy and back to romance. We were just switching it up within that one minute and it had to be on point and on beat.”
In addition, Xander’s delivery of a comedic line she had originally written surprised her, leading her to tweak the script in the moment. Eventually, he began adding his own jokes and was being “so absurd” that she ended up just trusting the process.
It was more than a month later that she got to see the first cut of that scene, and it was only when she was watching it from a third person’s perspective that she told herself the scene was comedic.
‘I wish the haters would come’
The overarching struggle for Annette in creating Dream Stall was her perfectionistic tendencies.
But Mark, whom she approached in 2023 to work on the film while they collaborated on a separate project, commended her steadfast commitment to her responsibilities.
The veteran actor recalled having told her back then: “If you want to do it, just do it. But the more important thing is your script – you have to do it well, otherwise you’ll run into lots of problems while filming.”
The 57-year-old remarked that since then, Annette had taken about a year and a half to finalise the script.
“There are some moments where I feel like I didn’t act well or direct good enough, especially if I’m doing both at the same time,” said Annette when asked about regrets.
“At the end of the day, I tell myself that perfection is impossible to achieve, so it’s a matter of finding that balance of having high standards and seeing the beauty in imperfection. I think that’s what happens when you make art – there’s a lot of unpredictability.”
While she remarked that she always feels there are areas for improvement, she remains proud of most of her decisions. “Tiny mistakes” managed to be tweaked in post-production, with some scenes cut out.
Mark added that with most of his scenes being in Mandarin and Hokkien, his Eastern acting style complemented Annette’s Western one, allowing for a “balanced” dynamic that would leave viewers with a feeling of authenticity.
Furthermore, the team held three test screenings with members of the public, improving on each cut of Dream Stall with every session. “I’m the kind of person who would rather receive the most brutal feedback during the creation process,” admitted Annette.
“Once it’s out, if people hate the film, it’ll be too late. While I’m sure there’ll still be people who don’t like it, art is so subjective and at least I’ll feel as if we did everything we could to make it good.”
In the realm of hate, she took to Instagram on May 11 to share a startling discovery: A group of netizens had gathered on local internet forum Hardwarezone to make a hate train about her and her film. She went undercover to interact with her haters, sending them an invitation to her movie premiere.
Ultimately, only one user responded, although Annette said he left a neutral comment.
“I wish the haters would come, but no one did!” she lamented. “But I’m happy for as many people as possible to come watch Dream Stall, even if it’s not today. I was talking to my director of photography, we were saying that we just want to make works that people would want to watch.
“I don’t even have anything to say to get back at my haters. Like, I want to be a friend. I’m sure if we meet up, we’ll have fun.”
Dream Stall also stars Ya Hui, Xixi Lim, Jaspers Lai and Cassandra See, with Jack Neo making a cameo, and premieres in local theatres May 27.
SG Culture Pass credits are eligible for the movie tickets.
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kristy.chua@asiaone.com
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