Cast of drama series The Season bond over crazy bets, derpy photos and overnight Ocean Park shoots, Entertainment News

Things got crazy on the set of Hong Kong English-language drama series The Season as the big multinational cast bonded over long hours of filming.

AsiaOne recently spoke to cast members Jessie Mei Li (who plays Cola Pierce), Karena Lam (Fiona Hext), Justin Chien (David Ho), Chris Pang (Andrew Fung), Yvonne Chapman (Madeline Wong) and Lee Jae-yoon (Jon Kim), who shared the fun and chaotic moments that happened on set.

The Season follows a group of elite friends, hosted by old-money family the Hexts, who are unaware that a new entrant to society, Cola, holds a dark secret. Parties and social events turn into a cat-and-mouse game across the city as Cola faces off against the elite of the city.

Justin, who plays a lawyer in the drama, recalled filming a scene with a big dance sequence where the entire cast made bets on how many takes they would do that day.

“We had a very specific metric for what constituted a take — like, half a take or pick-up [shot] didn’t count… You also can’t mess up a take on purpose to get it closer to your number. It was very tense because we had a lot riding on this,“ said the Taiwanese-American, who starred in The Brothers Sun.

The prize? A big pool of HK$5,000 (S$820).

According to Justin, Anson Lo from the Hong Kong boy group Mirror — who had a cameo appearance as a fictional version of himself — won.

Korean-American Jae-yoon, who was in the reality show Physical: 100 season two, showed us derpy selfies the cast members took on his phone without his knowledge. He stars as the unpredictable head of security Jon.

“I was in a bad mood for some reason, and I left my phone on a table for something, and I came back to get my phone [to see] these guys took, like, dozens of selfies,“ said the 41-year-old.

The unanimously memorable moments, however, seem to have happened at Ocean Park, as Yvonne, Chris, Karena and Jessie recalled “losing their minds“ because of the lack of sleep.

“It was a night scene, so we spent a whole week getting to work at like, 6pm all the way till the morning, and we were just going crazy in there. I think that’s when we really bonded,“ said 41-year-old Australian actor Chris, who was in Crazy Rich Asians.

Canadian Yvonne, who is the Hext family’s niece Madeline in the series, chimed in: “When you flip your hours around, you just start to become a little funny.“

Chris, starring as David’s best friend Andrew, said the sharks in the aquarium were also “going crazy“ and biting each other as they couldn’t sleep with the lights on at night.

The duo also laughed as they said they “definitely did not leave the restricted area of Ocean Park“ to see pandas.

“It wasn’t the greatest moment of my life,“ remarked 37-year-old Yvonne, who’s also in Avatar: The Last Airbender, with a smile.

Unexpected turns in their lives

Things took an unexpected turn for the characters in The Season, and we asked the cast if similar instances have happened to them.

Jae-yoon told us about a time when he was met with danger while on vacation in Saipan with his non-celebrity wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

“We were taking pictures by the beach and having a great time before I almost got robbed at gunpoint,“ he said, drawing shocked reactions from the cast members.

“The guy had a gun, and somehow I persuaded him.“

Jae-yoon said he spoke to the man in a “gentle way“, who eventually left the money and took off. “Isn’t that crazy?“

English actress Jessie, who was in Shadow and Bone, had a more lighthearted incident to tell as she joked that things going wrong are a “daily occurrence“ for her.

“Last night we had the premiere for the show, and as always I was completely unprepared and hadn’t tried on my outfit before arriving in Hong Kong. I had a pair of shoes that were so painful because they were too small that I couldn’t walk in them, so I spent the night barefoot,“ said Jessie, who turns 31 in August.

“I’m not sure how good an impression I made on everyone, but everyone got to see my feet, so lucky them.“

Watch all episodes of The Season now on Viu.

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