'Innocent actors' were affected, Benjamin Tan admits after he called out co-star for unprofessionalism

When you get a fire going, the people close to it will get hurt if you're not careful.

In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao on Tuesday (Jan 10) for the Mediacorp drama Strike Gold, Benjamin Tan revealed that the complaints he aired on his Instagram account in October last year about an "unprofessional" actor have caused some bystanders grief.

Back then, the 33-year-old local actor shared a strongly-worded post on his Instagram Story, where he called out an actor for their unprofessionalism and gave examples of how rude they allegedly were on set. He didn't identify their gender and name.

The actor he called out was apparently 95 per cent late for their shoots, would delay production because they didn't do their makeup and also complain if their lines were cut out of the show. 

Benjamin wrote on that Story: "No matter how much you think you have achieved, ultimately it boils down to who you are inside… and before making things difficult for our crew who work crazy long hours, maybe check on your own attitude."

Unfortunately, his own words seem to have come back to bite him, as he told the Chinese daily.

"I think it was right to point out the problems," Benjamin said in the interview. "But after I did it, it seemed to have caused trouble for the crew — it also affected innocent people."

He admitted these "innocent people" included actors that netizens speculated on.

And his words might not have even reached the targeted party.

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Admitted Benjamin: "I don't know if the other party knows that I am talking about them. Perhaps I could have used a more mature method to deal with this — one thing I could have done, for example, is to tell them immediately and understand where they're coming from.

"Another way would be to discuss it with the producer instead of posting it on social media so quickly."

But even if he did take alternate routes in making his complaints known to either the actor or the producer, he might still end up with a ruined relationship.

The reporter pointed out that our local entertainment industry is small and that Benjamin would likely meet that same actor again in the future.

To this, he replied: "I'll treat them normally. It could be that they're only like that when filming this drama, or that something just wasn't conducive for them."

So who exactly is the target of Benjamin's ire?

When asked for clarification, Benjamin only said the alleged offender wasn't at Strike Gold's press conference on Tuesday.

Attending the conference were Desmond Tan, He Yingying, Yao Wenlong, Yvonne Lim (who attended virtually), Jin Yinji, Kiki Lim, Hong Huifang and Jeffrey Xu.

Strike Gold will premiere on Jan 16 on meWATCH and Channel 8, with subsequent episodes airing on weekdays at 9pm.

ALSO READ: 'The silliest incident ever': Desmond Tan breaks 'most useless body part' while catching pineapple tart container

khooyihang@asiaone.com