Singapore actress Angeline Yap strips for the camera: ‘We are not having sex, it’s just pretending’ [1]
Singapore actress Angeline Yap says she went topless in a thriller because the nudity was integral to the plot
She adds that she took on the role to challenge herself and do something out of the norm.
“I wanted to change people’s mindset about nudity being taboo. I feel that Singapore movies are too normal and too safe.”
So Yap was prepared for him to cup her breasts and kiss her body. “It’s not like I was caught unprepared.”
It is a role most local actresses would shy away from but newcomer Angeline Yap has taken the plunge and appears topless in a thriller that will be screened at the Singapore International Film Festival later this month.
As femme fatale Li Er in the Mandarin thriller Lang Tong (Cantonese for “nice soup”), she is seen topless and having sex with her older sister’s lover, the womanising con man Zack (William Lawandi). She also convinces him to help murder her sibling Li Ling (Vivienne Tseng), an alluring woman who makes a great pork rib soup.
The trailer which includes a scene of a man removing a pair of panties from a topless female body seen from the neck down, is already steaming up computer and mobile-phone screens.
The film makes its world premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival on Dec 13.
Yap, 27, tells Life! she stripped for the camera because the nudity was integral to the plot.
She says: “It was used to tell a story and to convey a message more clearly. To me, it’s a form of art. I don’t see it as sleazy.
“If it’s video porn or mostly about sex with no character to the story, I won’t take it up.”
She adds that she took on the role to challenge herself and do something out of the norm.
“I wanted to change people’s mindset about nudity being taboo. I feel that Singapore movies are too normal and too safe.”
Normal and safe is what director, producer and co-writer Sam Loh, 46, wanted to throw out of the window.
Lang Tong is his take on the twisted thriller and his references include Takashi Miike’s nightmare-inducing Audition (1999) and Fruit Chan’s macabre Dumplings (2004).
In Audition, a young woman subjects her widower suitor to terrifying torture, and in Dumplings, the secret to eternal youth involves human foetuses.
Loh was out to push the boundaries on sex and violence and says: “If not, then everything would be the status quo all the time.”
The film has been rated R21 with no cuts.
Female frontal nudity was previously seen in the short film Hush (2012) while Royston Tan’s 15 (2003) and Kan Lume’s Solos (2007), among others, had featured male frontal nudity.
Loh has more than 15 years of film and television directing experience and his credits include crime drama Code Of Law (2012) for Channel 5 and children’s dramas for Channel 8.
He has made one other film, Outsiders (2004), about young dysfunctional Singaporeans. It was not shown in Singapore, but screened at festivals such as the Asian Film Festival in Rome.
He says: “The TV climate is very conservative so for my personal films, I want to do more self-expression, like tackling darker subjects which I can’t do on TV.”
Loh filmed “the most difficult” steamy scenes on the first day of shooting.
He says: “When it comes to shooting these scenes, the actors may appear very awkward and don’t know where to put their hands and you have to iron those things out before you shoot. After a while, it’s like work, you rehearse and block out the action.”
The $500,000 film was shot over two weeks in April in a flat in Tiong Bahru.
For Yap, it helped that she had met Lawandi, an Indonesian-Chinese actor based in Singapore, from a previous indie film project, 1400.
Add the rehearsals with Loh and the few occasions they met to talk about the movie and she declares that shooting the sexy stuff “was rather smooth and wasn’t that awkward”.
Apart from the actors, only the director, the cameraman and a female make-up artist “who took care of me” were present for the shooting of the sex scenes. Still, Lawandi, 38, says with a laugh that they were “really awkward”.
But he adds: “It’s more about the facial expressions and the movements and how the camera captured them. Of course, there was a lot of discussion about how to do it and where to do it.”
So Yap was prepared for him to cup her breasts and kiss her body. “It’s not like I was caught unprepared.”
She makes it clear though: “We are not having sex. It’s just pretending, acting.”
In fact, she says they did not kiss on the mouth. She also donned skin-coloured panties for protection.
Asked if she is prepared for all the attention and scrutiny the role will bring and she says: “I guess I’m ready. There may be criticism and unkind remarks but I don’t need to please everyone. If it’s just an unkind remark, I’ll just ignore it.”
When she first landed the role, she kept it from her parents.
She says evenly: “This is my choice and I’m already an adult. Maybe I should have told them, but I didn’t want them to worry so much. I feel that this is my life and my body.”
Yap, who is single, declines to provide more details about her family and adds: “I hope the media will not pull them in and say things such as them not raising me properly.”
The model-actress has a degree in communications and new media from the National University of Singapore and has taken part in beauty pageants, including Miss Bikini Universe Singapore 2014 and Miss World Singapore 2014, where she emerged third runner-up.
Her acting credits include the yet-to- be-released indie drama 1400, which comprises three interwoven tales of characters searching for love in a hotel. She plays the role of Moon, a hairstylist by day and a prostitute by night.
She has appeared in small roles on TV shows, including the current Channel 8 sitcom 118 and Crimewatch as a victim of sextortion.
Yap hopes that Lang Tong will open more doors for her. But she is not keen to strip for the camera again.
She says: “I don’t want people to stereotype and typecast me. I want to try a variety of roles.”
Later on, she adds though: “Unless it’s a very big role, a very good script or a very famous director, then I’ll consider.”
Actress Angeline Yap still proud of baring body after online harassment [1]
Yap’s notorious role in the Sam Loh-directed movie has been the talk of the town since the trailer was released recently as part of this year’s Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF), which kicked off two days ago.
The 11/2-minute trailer, which has garnered over 230,000 views on YouTube, gives a graphic glimpse into the movie’s themes of sex, violence and murder.
Yap, the lead actress, is seen topless in the trailer in some steamy sex scenes, including one with actress Elizabeth T.
But even though the online criticism has hurt, the actress stands by her decision to bare it all for the movie.
She wrote previously on her Facebook page: “Just because no one is daring enough, it doesn’t mean it can’t be done…”
“It only shows that I’m strong and brave enough.”
In an interview with The New Paper on Thursday, Yap gave another insight into the reason for her courage: Her battle with anorexia.
Having almost died from the disorder in her teenage years, the actress believes that her decision to bare her body is proof that she has conquered her fears.
Yap had also just ended a six-year relationship with her boyfriend last year when she was asked to audition for Lang Tong.
PUSH FACTOR
The painful break-up had pushed her to face her demons as it was the first time she had been single since she recovered from anorexia.
“Recovering from anorexia for me was a miracle in itself,” said the 1.64m-tall Yap, who weighed a mere 33kg when she was 15.
“As someone who hated my body and had low self-esteem, I’ve proven to myself that I am not ashamed of my body any more by being brave enough to bare it all in a film.”
Yap said: “I hope other women who are struggling to love themselves will one day realise that everyone is beautiful in her own way.”
Yap, who started recovering from the eating disorder only when she was 21 and now weighs a healthy 47kg, said: “I am not asking other people to go out and accept these roles. I am proud to say that I did this (starring in Lang Tong) for me.”
In the movie, which is Cantonese for “nice soup”, Yap plays lesbian femme fatale Li Er who has always blamed her older sister Li Ling (Vivienne Tseng) for her mother’s death.
Her character hatches a plot to seduce her sister’s womanising conman boyfriend Zach (William Lawandi) and get him to murder Li Ling.
Tickets are sold out for the Dec 13 SIFF screening and a commercial release date is still in discussion.
Yap admitted that when she was filming a shower sex scene with Lawandi, she was still self-conscious about her body and kept asking the director if she looked fat.
She said: “But I tried to control my insecurities and focus on the scene, and after a while, I was okay.
“So many people kept saying that I was doing it for the fame.
“When I accepted this film, the director had told me that it wasn’t confirmed that the nude scenes would make the cut.
“He had also produced this film with the international market in mind. So it came as a surprise that it made it past the Singapore censors uncut, with a R21 rating.
“So how was I stripping for fame when initially, nothing was a guarantee? That doesn’t even make any sense.”
After accepting the role, the National University of Singapore communications and new media graduate quit her “government job” to pursue acting full-time as it was her childhood dream.
She did not tell her parents about her role in Lang Tong and they were upset when they read reports about her nude scenes a few days ago.
Said Yap: “They were very angry and they scolded me.”
“I explained to them why I did it and even got my co-stars to talk to them.”
“They said they were just worried about me. I told them not to worry because I won’t be taking up such roles again, unless it’s some big Hollywood film.”
“I’m the sensible type. I’m very careful about what I choose to do.”
More to movie than sex, says director
Stop talking about the sex already.
Lang Tong’s director Sam Loh, 46, was both amused and exasperated with the feedback his film’s trailer has garnered.
He said that his dark, controversial thriller is just a movie and its plot certainly revolves around a lot more than just sex.
He told The New Paper: “I wanted to make a film of high quality, like those Japanese and Korean films where the audience can go see it and be thoroughly entertained.”
“That is the reason I had to push the boundaries further.”
“What people don’t know is that the production team for Lang Tong was very small, less than 20, and we had a budget of only $500,000 for this independent film.”
“I hope people watch it and appreciate that from what little resources we had, we managed to produce something comparable to films that have much bigger budgets.”
EXPERIENCE
Loh has more than 15 years of film and TV directing experience.
His credits include Channel 5 crime drama Code Of Law (2012) and children’s dramas for Channel 8.
He made one other film, Outsiders, in 2004, about young dysfunctional Singaporeans. It was not shown here, but was screened at festivals such as the Asian Film Festival in Rome, Italy.
Loh said that he had written the script for Lang Tong a few years ago, but could not find an actress willing to bare it all in the film.
Local actress Angeline Yap was the first one to agree to the demands of the role when he met her last year, allowing Lang Tong to be filmed and submitted to the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) this year.
Said Loh: “I’m very happy with people’s response to the trailer. To hear that the tickets have been sold out for the screening is also a surprise.”
“I didn’t expect the outcome to be so good.”
The SIFF is looking into adding additional dates for screenings of Lang Tong.
Tips to getting sex scene right
In the movie Lang Tong, one of the most difficult things actress Angeline Yap had to do was to simulate sex on-screen.
People have no idea how technical the whole process really is, she said.
Yap gives five tips from her experience shooting the movie:
- Before filming starts, discuss with your co-star what you should do – where you should place your hands and what you are comfortable with to avoid awkwardness later.
- Rehearse before shooting and talk yourself through it a few times.
- Pretend that you are having sex with someone that you really love. That emotion will help facial expressions be more realistic.
- Get in character. Don’t be distracted or self-conscious of your body.
- Do not eat or drink much before the scene. Some water and vegetables are fine. You do not want to look bloated during the scene as that will affect your confidence.
Let’s ask her buddy if nudity is integral to movies?