It's her very first action movie but unfortunately, you won't get to see Hayley Woo in action. However, she did fight a five-day war with Covid-19 during the filming of Baby Hero in Thailand.
In an interview with AsiaOne on Tuesday (Jan 21), the 32-year-old actress shared with us that her character Leena had to be written out of the sole action scene she was involved in after she contracted Covid-19 and was quarantined.
In preparation for the scene, she had even undergone training with a professional Thai stunt crew, something she had never done before. Along with the other cast members involved in the scene, they rehearsed for it in full protective gear.
Hayley told us: "It really feels like such a waste that in the end, I didn't get to be a part [of the final scene], like, why is this happening? There were so many other people there, but of all people, why me?"
Writing Hayley out of the scene was not a spontaneous decision either, as the director and the creative team had to quickly deliberate on what to do considering her condition. She explained that the production was "already running on a tight schedule", and that "the set would be removed already".
In Baby Hero, young aspiring singer Sun (Long Lee) doubts his career in Singapore and fabricates a story of thieves coveting his family's relic to escape his manager girlfriend Leena (Hayley). He returns to his hometown Happy Village in Thailand, where his family runs a small tourism business.
Leena travels to the village to bring him back and meets tourists including Juker (Wang Weiliang), Meng Meng (Ya Hui), Bently (Joshua Tan) and Wu Deyong (Chen Tianwen), who each harbour secrets of their own. When trouble strikes Happy Village, they set aside their motives, working together using their fists and wits to defeat the villains and protect the village.
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Speaking further about how serious her Covid infection was, Hayley said she had initially thought it was only a case of heatiness — the cast and crew had been filming in sweltering 43 degree Celsius heat over the course of a month.
Hayley was eventually sent to the local hospital two days before filming the scheduled action scene. She was then placed under quarantine and throughout her illness, she experienced coughing fits so severe that she joked she "got abs".
The whole ordeal affected her feelings "quite a lot", Hayley recalled, but she managed to cope with the warmth and support of her family and cast members.
"I was stuck in quarantine, and being overseas made me even more homesick. I kept thinking about my mum's cooking, and video-calling my sister (twin Jayley) and niece," said Hayley, adding two-year-old Jan really cheered her up.
She added her co-stars Ya Hui - whom she affectionately referred to as a big sister - and the Thai cast checked in on her often..
"Ya Hui really looked after me, always asking if I'd eaten my meals and if there was anything she could do for me," Hayley said.
"I also really appreciate [Thai actor Vithaya 'Pipu' Pansringarm] and the others. They'd always text me and tell me, 'Hey, don't be depressed, don't be sad! We're here for you.' I was in a bad place at that point in time."
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kristy.chua@asiaone.com
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