At a press conference for local Chinese New Year movie 3 Good Guys, AsiaOne spoke to its main cast about their experiences acting in the romantic comedy.
Local content creator Simonboy, also known as Simon Khung, told us he had minimal clothes for his role as Jeremy, which was helpful while filming in the sweltering heat in Bangkok where filming took place.
In the movie, Jeremy gets cold feet on his wedding day in Thailand, and he travels to a shrine to pray for love where his best friends Ah Bao (Mayiduo) and Mike (Tommy Wong) catch up with him.
Soon after, they are forced into a spiritual adventure by a spirit Kwan (Ananda Everingham) where they can only escape after learning empathy and winning back their partners’ love.
While in the spirit realm, Jeremy is cursed with nudity — any attempts to dress himself result in his clothes ‘running away’ from him.
With only a flesh-toned garment covering his privates in public during filming, 38-year-old Simonboy said: “At first, I was a bit shy but when I realised that I had the rare chance to be a main character in a movie, I stopped being anxious — and anyway, I’m usually not afraid of standing out.”
In one scene, the trio enter a go-go bar where they are forced to join the bar’s scantily clad male dancers. Jeremy’s ex-fiancee Mint (Fah Chatchaya), who is in the crowd with her new beau, spots Jeremy and throws money at him while he dances for her.
On performing sensually in little clothing, Simonboy said: “Dancing all of that in front of more than 80 extras naturally felt pretty awkward. But after seeing Mayiduo dance, I thought that there shouldn’t be any reason for me to be scared either.”
Content creator Mayiduo, whose real name is Kelvin Tan, added to AsiaOne: “We danced really well at first when there was no one for our front-facing scene. But upon realising we had to film a reverse shot with all the extras around, we froze up for a bit.”
Reel imitating real
Their characters in the movie live self-centred lives and portraying them did not come without real-life challenges.
Before Jeremy ran away from his wedding, it is revealed that Mint’s rich, disapproving mother convinced him to leave their relationship due to his history as an ex-convict.
The scene is staged as a tense confrontation between him and the matriarch, as she shows him paper evidence of his past wrongdoings while a middle-aged helper gets belittled by Mint’s new, arranged fiance.
“That was really uncomfortable for me, as I saw my mother in the helper,” recalled Simonboy. “What director Boi did was to find someone who looked like my mum, so that scene wasn’t just a show to me — it was reality.
“Back then, I experienced that same objection from my in-laws. After my wife watched the movie during the gala premiere, she said that scene reminded her of us when we’d just gotten together and her parents were very worried about us. It took more than two years for them to accept me, but now they love me and are very happy with me and my wife’s relationship.”
In his online career that started in 2021, Simonboy has been open about his past battles with drug addiction and previous incarcerations for drug-related offences.
Screaming in pain
In Ah Bao’s case, he is cursed with a perpetually pregnant belly as retribution for his lack of sympathy in caring about his wife’s childbirth wishes. To play the part, Mayiduo wore a 2kg latex prosthetic glued to his stomach.
“I’m already big-sized, so it wasn’t that much of a difference when it came to movement,” quipped the 34-year-old.
However, the real struggle came when it was time to remove the prosthetic after long periods of filming, as the area around his stomach would turn red and develop a dry eczema-like rash. To alleviate the discomfort, Mayiduo used medicated body powder to cool down the area.
At the climax of 3 Good Guys, Ah Bao goes into labour and successfully delivers with the support of his wife Rachel (Germaine Chow) and his best friends.
In filming the arduous scene, Mayiduo revealed: “For the first few takes, director Boi and I felt that my acting wasn’t realistic enough as I was a man trying to emulate the pain of childbirth — which is something I could not understand. These were the takes we didn’t use a birth simulator.
“Then after that, we decided to try the simulator and we established an emergency word — our producer’s name ‘Hazel’ — in case the pain got too severe. When we turned it on, the pain was so sharp and vivid and my acting became life-like. At some point, I began to keep screaming for Hazel, but she was too far away.”
Cried in hotel room
Mike is a verbally abusive and passive figure who depends on his wife En (Grace Teo) to do the household chores and take care of their child while she juggles a corporate job. The couple share an emotionally distant relationship, so much that En hides her cancer diagnosis in fear of upsetting him.
Content creator Tommy Wong — also known as businessman TommyNBCB who runs local burger chain Nothing But Cheeseburger — struggled to play his on-screen counterpart whose temperament vastly contrasted from his.
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He shared that after his wife watched 3 Good Guys for the first time, she was shocked by his performance as she had never known him to be someone who belittled people.
“It was the first time she’d ever seen me scold people, so now you understand how good a husband I am,” quipped Tommy. “It was very challenging for me to play someone like Mike, so I hope you all can cut me some slack.”
He revealed that early on in production, he had broken down and cried in his hotel room after veteran actor Mark Lee, who made a guest appearance, criticised his acting.
As a businessman, the 39-year-old has not received professional acting training and his role as Mike marks his film debut.
“It had only been a few days since we started production and I was still getting used to things, but perhaps Mark had already set high expectations for us,” reflected Tommy.
“On the third day, when he was there to prepare for his cameo and check everything out, he told me that my expressions weren’t right and that he wasn’t seeing anything from my performance. He asked if I was truly prepared and had been paying attention to my acting.”
Tommy added, when the duo saw each other at an event back in Singapore, Mark explained that being his senior, he felt the need to bring up any issue he saw if he cared about improving the entertainment industry – a sentiment which Tommy appreciated.
3 Good Guys is now showing in Singapore cinemas.
kristy.chua@asiaone.com
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