PUBLISHED ONDecember 12, 2022 6:56 AMByKhoo Yi-HangChantalle Ng's revenge is a dish best served cold — or in this case, spicy.
In an interview with AsiaOne last Thursday (Dec 8), Chantalle revealed that there was a 'competition' between her and co-star Xu Bin as they filmed the new Mediacorp drama Love At First Bite.
"We like to compare and see who's suffering more," the 27-year-old said. "For [one scene], I finally had the upper-hand because [previously] it was always my character doing all the more tedious work."
In Love At First Bite, Chantalle plays Chang Xiyue, a foodie who joins Mars Nova, a company that specialises in selling kitchenware.
But her job becomes increasingly difficult when her boss Martius (Xu Bin) instructs her to livestream and prepare food to promote their kitchenware — although she's a foodie, Xiyue's no masterchef and she ends up making many mistakes and earning the ire of Martius.
In one scene that Chantalle — a self-proclaimed germaphobe — found particularly difficult, she had to 'vomit' on 33-year-old Xu Bin.
To simulate this, she chewed up a mixture of digestive biscuits and milk, kept that in her mouth and held it there until filming for the scene began.
"I really almost puked… I had to wait for [the director to call] action, wait for the right time and then 'puke' it on Xu Bin," Chantalle recalled.
"To me, it was milk plus biscuits plus my saliva, which is just super disgusting… that was a challenge for me."
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In another scene, Xiyue faints and Martius attempts to get her to regain consciousness.
But their proximity had an unintended result.
She said, visibly irked during the interview: "There was liquid dripping onto my face — I was just like, 'Okay, I wish I really fainted'.
"It was quite a struggle, and if his sweat or whatever it was dripped onto my face, I couldn't really sanitise my face (using hand sanitisers). So I just dabbed [the sanitiser on my face] — it was just desperate measures."
And while she 'suffered' in those scenes, she also got a chance to taste revenge — and it tasted of curry.
In particular, one scene with Xu Bin had her collapsed on top of him, smearing curry all over him — Chantalle admitted she enjoyed filming it very much.
"Being drenched in curry sounds like something I would have to go through, but that time it was him, so it balances out," she cheerily said.
Additionally, the filming for Love At First Bite was made as enjoyable as possible for Chantalle as the crew were aware of her preference for cleanliness and aided where they could.
"Every time when I'm filming there will be a very big bottle of hand sanitiser, and they all know it's for me," she said. "They know that I struggle with it (germaphobia), but it's just something that I have to overcome. I have to do it, but they try to make it as pleasant for me as possible."
When she had kissing scenes to film, they would prepare mouthwash, and when she needed to lie on the ground, they would be "really thoughtful" and sanitise it using Dettol towels.
She added: "To me it's like, 'No, I'm going to be very dirty already so actually you don't need to help me do that.' But it's just sweet gestures from my friends on set."
Love At First Bite also stars Romeo Tan, Tasha Low, Shane Pow and Brandon Wong and will be available from Dec 19 on meWATCH. It will also be shown on Channel 8, weekdays at 9pm.
khooyihang@asiaone.com
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