PUBLISHED ONJanuary 19, 2024 6:50 AMByYeo Shu HuiWhen Hong Kong actress Jessica Hsuan first accepted the role of May Shaw in the new Mediacorp drama Kill Sera Sera, she had one major worry.
How can she experience the complex feelings of a mother whose daughter was murdered and dismembered?
"I can't capture the feeling of how a mother would feel losing her child because I don't have children of my own. I understand that it is definitely a devastating feeling but I can't feel it," the 53-year-old told AsiaOne in an interview for the new drama yesterday (Jan 18).
Despite that, she wanted to play the role because it was different from the usual characters she portrays.
"My manager told me that the character is quite dark and the plot is quite heavy and wanted to see if I was willing to take it up… I think to improve, this was needed and the only way because otherwise, I would always remain in my comfort zone," she shared.
Jessica added that she always watches a drama from the viewers' point of view and wanted to present a different side of herself to her audiences.
She explained: "I feel that May Shaw may be a surprising or even a frightening role, and our audiences would see something different from me."
In Kill Sera Sera, Jessica plays renowned art sculptor May, whose daughter Sera Sun (Chantalle Ng) was murdered and dismembered on leap year four years ago. Living in guilt and despair over a fight that she had with Sera before her death and devastated that her murder remains unsolved, May seeks to find her daughter's killer.
In the process, she finds out that Sera had been offering sexual services and running a pornography website which her husband and Sera's father Allan Sun (Christopher Lee) was a patron of.
As May continues looking for the murderer and unexpectedly finds emotional connection with pastor James Chang (Taiwanese actor James Wen), she accidentally commits a homicide which she tries to hide by imitating Sera's murder.
Jessica shared that she was very worried while preparing to play May.
She said: "When I saw the first three episodes of the script, I nearly fainted when I saw my scenes and thought to myself, 'I don't know whether I can do it well and meet the director's expectations'.
"When I act, I devote my feelings to it. Some actors used method acting, but I need to feel it from my heart, I can only perform when I feel it in my heart, so I have been looking for the emotion."
Her friends offered her a suggestion — think of her pets as her children.
Jessica, who has two dogs and three cats, said: "My friends told me to imagine my pets as my children, and if they were killed one day and I see their dismembered bodies, how would I feel? I told them, 'I would find the killer and kill the person'.
"I sort of get the feeling, but I still can't feel the connection between humans, because I think there is still a difference between animals and human beings."
It was not until Jessica saw the brutal murder of Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi on the news that she finally understood and captured the feelings required to portray May.
She shared: "I felt really uncomfortable and unhappy about it. I feel that it is horrifying and there are similarities in our plot. At first, I was worried about whether the plot is believable, but this piece of news tells us that things like that happen in real life too. I finally understood those feelings because although I don't know this person, I feel really sad and awful about what happened to her.
"Sometimes, her mother would appear in the news footage, and she would hug her daughter's partner and sob. That was when I felt the kind of heartache that she felt. So when I went on set and performed together with the actors, the atmosphere, their lines and their performances all contributed to help me get into the role."
Jessica also shared that the filming period was a difficult time for her because she was holding on to May's feelings to better get into character the next working day.
She said: "In the beginning, I turned down meetings with my friends, because they knew I was coming to Singapore and wanted to meet up for meals. I told them that I want to get into my character first.
"So every day after filming ended, I would return to my room to shower and go to the supermarket downstairs to get some food. I would also listen to some music to relax and prepare for the next day," she said.
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"I think it was because of the work stress and the character, so I couldn't sleep well at night," she added.
Luckily, her on-screen daughter helped her with it.
Jessica shared: "Chantalle advised me to take melatonin. There were a lot of choices and the one that I bought didn't help, so she told me which one to buy and it really helped."
She added that although she and Chantalle did not have many scenes together, they chatted comfortably and bonded as friends on set in between takes.
Beside worrying about capturing the right feelings to portray May, Jessica also told us the other worry she has whenever she comes to Singapore.
"I would gain weight when I am here, there is just so much good food!" she laughed.
When asked what some of her must-haves are while she's here, her eyes lit up as she said: "Definitely pandan cake and Hainanese chicken rice. I ate black pepper crab the other time and it was so good! I generally like the dishes here because it suits my taste. There are also many good food at the basement of Takashimaya!"
Kill Sera Sera is now available on demand for free on meWATCH and three new episodes will be released every Monday.
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