When Cassandra See first approached long-time friend Cherie Lim about the concept of the microdrama BingBingBiangBiang Kopidiam, the latter agreed to act in it immediately.
“No convincing was needed. Cassandra said why not we just do something fun to make everyone laugh, and I replied, ‘Why not?’,” the local former model-actress, who is wife to Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim, told AsiaOne in an interview recently.
The series will be produced by Bing Bing Biang Biang Squad, a live commerce channel founded by local actors Cassandra, Jason Oh and Constance Song.
Cherie, 56, is performing in the microdrama without payment and shared that the series didn’t have a sponsor at the time of their discussion.
“When Cassandra spoke about the pay, I told her that this is just for fun, so let’s not talk about money. If we make money, everybody will share it. If we don’t, then we will just have fun together,” she said.
Cassandra, 55, and Jason, 59, revealed during the series’ press conference on Aug 21 that they are now sponsored by local travel agency Travel Star.
Directed by veteran producer Michael Woo, BingBingBiangBiang Kopidiam is a 100-episode comedy series centering on first-time hawker Ah Liang (Huang Yiliang), who rents a “cursed” stall at a neighbourhood coffee shop to sell crab bee hoon and his daily interactions with his customers and other stall owners.
Michael is known for producing local sitcoms including Don’t Worry, Be Happy (1996 – 2002).
Cherie plays feisty fried chicken stall owner Bing Bing Jie, whose own life experiences cause her to be doubtful of men.
“My character is supposed to very kaypoh… Her husband ran away with another woman, so she became very sceptical about men. When she sees a man with another woman, she will wonder if he is fooling around outside. She has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” she shared.
Cherie graduated from Singapore Broadcasting Corporation’s (SBC, now Mediacorp) ninth acting course in 1989, alongside actors Xie Shaoguang and Terence Cao, and had acted in local drama series including Sweet Dreams (1990), Behind Bars (1991), Breaking Point (1992) and Young Justice Bao (1994).
She left showbiz in 1994 to work in public relations and founded a modelling agency before marrying Lim in 2003.
About returning to acting after more than three decades, Cherie told us: “I haven’t been in front of the camera for a long time, so there’s definitely some nerves. Same with memorising the Mandarin lines, because my Chinese isn’t very good.
“Also, because this is a microdrama and the tempo is a bit faster, not only do I have to speed up my acting tempo, I also have to speak Mandarin very fast, so that would be my challenge.”
She has quite a few spoken parts in the first few episodes of the microdrama and has been practising them diligently.
“We hope to be able to entertain the viewers and educate them, especially the elderly. If there is a message we want to bring across that is beneficial to them, we hope to use this opportunity to help them understand it,” she added.
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Cherie’s family is also very supportive of her returning to the screen.
“They said to let them know when the microdrama is released, so they could go and support it.”
BingBingBiangBiang Kopidiam, which also stars Cassandra, Jason, Constance, Jin Yinji, Apple Hong, Tang Miaoling and Joy Yak, is expected to premiere in mid-September on Bing Bing Biang Biang Squad’s TikTok and Instagram pages.
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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com
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