Jeanette Aw celebrated 25 years in showbiz recently in laughter and tears with her team on Lazarus Island.
Reflecting on those years, the 46-year-old local actress-businesswoman shared in a YouTube video released on Dec 14 that the tough part wasn’t filming itself, but situations that happened outside of filming, which she could only face it herself
“After going through it, you would feel like, ‘Wow, I’m actually really strong,'” she said.
Jeanette, who has played many memorable roles on local television series over the years including Holland Village (2003), The Little Nyonya (2008) and The Dream Makers (2013), humbly credited her successes to people who supported her along the way.
She added she was “lucky” to have received filming opportunities which made her enjoy acting, but she doesn’t take these for granted and would still put in all her effort and constantly seek breakthroughs in her performances.
Despite that, Jeanette knew from the start of her career that acting is not the only thing she wanted to do in life: “I don’t want to act until I’m 70 or 80. Because I feel life is short, there are many other things I want to do.
“When I decided to leave [Hype Records and Mediacorp], I just felt that it was actually quite good, because I can seriously consider which projects I really want to do, what I want to take on. I do what makes me happy.”
Jeanette left management agency Hype Records and broadcaster Mediacorp in late 2017 and enrolled in the Diploma in Patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu Dusit Culinary School in Bangkok in mid-2018. She graduated in 2019 and opened her first pastry shop Once Upon a Time in 2021.
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‘Do you feel that working for me is not good?’
Jeanette’s manager Pauline Soh, who has been with her for the past 25 years, described in the video that working with her was a “roller coaster” ride and has seen her through her ups and downs over the years.
She also never imagined joining the food and beverage (F&B) industry one day with Jeanette.
Pauline laughed: “At the very beginning, I was in the shop zesting lemon when I told Jeanette, ‘Wow, boss, how did we end up where we are today? Why did I end up having to zest lemons now?’ I never thought it would be like this.
“Then when I was mopping the floor, I told her, ‘Boss, I don’t have to mop the floor at home, you know? Why do I have to come to the shop and mop today?’ I was thinking about why. When I signed [up for this job], I thought it was to be an artiste manager. Why did I end up in F&B suddenly?”
She also revealed that they cried the most together during the first year of the business.
She recalled: “Jeanette was wiping the tables while crying, and I was mopping the floor while crying. The two of us were crying as we worked. Then she said, ‘Do you feel that working for me is not good?’ She would feel like she was dragging me down.
“She would feel I didn’t have to suffer like this, but because she wanted to chase this dream, she would ask me if it was very tough working for her. I said, ‘I know you’re tired too, we’ll just push through it together.'”
Jeanette also shared she wanted to run her business based on her own capabilities, and not using her status and connections as an artiste to promote her brand.
She explained: “When we started the patisserie, I knew that many people might think I was just using my name to do this. So at the time, I thought I wanted to slowly prove that I’m doing this myself. After all, I did go to a school and earned a diploma, it’s a patisserie diploma and it’s a proper certificate from Le Cordon Bleu.
“So I insisted on not doing media drops. I don’t need to use my friends from the media to help promote this. I hope to slowly build customers’ trust in me, that all of this is done by me. So whenever I want to do a collab, I would insist on collaborating with professional chefs… because I think that only by doing these things will people slowly start to believe you have the ability and that you’re doing it professionally.”
She also recounted a collaboration opportunity with an unnamed well-known local chef whose words didn’t sit well with her.
Jeanette recounted: “He approached me and said, ‘Anyway, you’re from Le Cordon Bleu, your recipe should be very easy.’ I was thinking to myself, ‘Okay, this is not my collab partner.'”
She had very good and happy collabs previously with other chefs and businesses, where she put in effort into thinking about elements to incorporate into her dessert and was proud of her creations.
Jeanette said: “I was thinking, ‘Don’t judge someone by your own standards, because you’re still someone with a certain standing in the F&B industry. I don’t think you should say that to any other chef.’ And he looked for me because he wanted to collab with Jeanette Aw and not because I’m a pastry chef.”
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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com
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