Acting Career
When Zheng was five, she accompanied her elder sister (who had a part in a documentary) to a TV station. Upon realising that the producer wanted her to play a part, a terrified Zheng hid behind a sofa.
Jack Neo, who wrote and directed Homerun, placed a newspaper advertisement about auditions for a role in the movie, stating that he was looking for a "girl about nine, dark, skinny, and can cry and act". After seeing the advertisement, Zheng's father joked that she fitted the bill, prompting the girl to call Neo's J Team Productions and arrange an audition. Just before the audition ended, Zheng reminded Neo that he had yet to see her cry and she then proceeded to demonstrate her ability to do so. This anecdote, coupled with Neo's belief that Zheng could take direction and "her eyes could communicate", convinced Neo to select Zheng over 1006 other children.
During the school holidays, Zheng and the rest of the Homerun cast flew to Malaysia for on-location shoot. Although Zheng was usually able to cry on cue, the cast and crew once had to wait 20 minutes for her to begin. Seeing Zheng crying uncontrollably while shooting a particularly emotional scene, an impressed Xiang Yun commented "Wah, this little kid is very absorbed in her role".
In an interview shortly after Zheng won the award, her mother indicated a desire to see her act again because "this is her interest". Neo intended to cast Zheng in his next film, The Best Bet, but his plans never materialised. Instead, Zheng was given the role of Zeng Xiaowei in One More Chance. She is scheduled to star in My Family, My Heart.
Read more about this topic: Megan Zheng
Famous quotes containing the words acting and/or career:
“Surely, ‘tis one step towards acting well, to think worthily of our nature; and as in common life, the way to make a man honest, is, to suppose him so ... so here, to set some value upon ourselves, enables us to support the character ... of generosity and virtue.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)