bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

By all accounts, Jessica Hester Hsuan has all the qualities that make her highly incompatible with the restrictive circle of Hong Kong showbusiness.

 For starters, the TVB star of Witness To The Prosecution and Dreams Come True does not even have a Chinese name but has adopted 'Hsuen Huen' as her artistic nom de guerre.

 She is stubborn and outspoken - not something that endears young actresses to the industry. Unlike other preening starlets, she confesses to a dislike of having the spotlight - and camera lenses - trained on her.

 And yet she was voted favourite TVB actress last year.

 Ask her what she looks for in life and her answer would be an unwavering 'to be happy about what I do' and 'to have a secure job'. Happiness and security, some would testify, are perhaps the two main things a showbiz career does not offer.

 'I admit that in certain aspects I am very unsuited to the industry. I like the hours, but I am very bad at handling all the politics and gossiping,' says Hsuan, who has been inadvertently dragged into her share of nasty gossip about bad relationships with her co-stars and rumour-mongering by the press in the past.

 'Previously I thought that as long as I was in the right, then everything would be OK. But I was wrong.

 'The game isn't played that way. Reporters don't want to be mean but it's their job. If they don't write a sensational enough story, they may lose their jobs,' adds Hsuan.

 'So you really cannot blame them. You just have to adjust to the situation, although there is a limit to what I can take. But the pens are in the reporters' hands and I can't sit and watch them write every story. And I cannot come out and explain myself every time.

 'I was very frustrated when I couldn't accept this. Even when you're in the right, you can appear to be the bad guy.

 'But I've decided I should let it be. Someone told me that if I hadn't won awards, no-one would bother to gossip about me. So I take comfort in that.'  Despite all that, she has lasted seven years in the dog-eat-dog world of Hong Kong entertainment. But perhaps 'lasted' is not the right word: Hsuan has thrived, scooping up awards.

 'I have to say it has been a relatively smooth ride for me but it's also because I have a good management team which understands what I like and want to do,' says Hsuan.

 It is not, however, as if she has any grand strategic plans to place herself on the acting map. Hsuan is more of a believer in letting things fall into their own place naturally.

 The former Maryknoll Convent School student left Hong Kong to continue her studies in England when she was 13. Undecided about what to major in - 'I needed to get a degree to make my parents happy' - she chose to get a Bachelor of Science in material science. 'I knew I would not be looking for a job in that field but I liked studying science. It came easy to me,' she said.

 Her first experience with acting came when she was in college and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the school audition.

 'I only went because I was promised that I was only there to make up the numbers and would not be chosen. I am really quite shy and hate being the centre of attention. However, at the end of the audition, they took me aside and told me I had been chosen,' Hsuan recalls with a laugh.

 After that, the acting bug had truly bitten and was holding on tight. During school holidays back in Hong Kong, she got together with some friends to put on amateur stage productions.

 Despite her interest in acting and although TVB's annual artist training class was one of the most direct ways to get into the business (Chow Yun-fat and Stephen Chiau Sing-chi were graduates of the training classes), Hsuan baulked at the idea.

 'Money is not a deciding factor in most jobs I take up now. If I didn't like a certain role, I wouldn't do it no matter how much you paid me. But I didn't go overseas to study all those years to come back and earn about $3,000 a month, which was what these trainees were getting. I think I would probably have gone for a banking job or something if that had been the only choice I had,' she says.

 But life had a way of falling into place for Hsuan and it was during preparations for an amateur play that she was spotted by a modelling agency and offered an audition for an instant coffee commercial. She got the job and hardly had the commercial aired when TVB gave her a casting call.

 Her decision to enter the big bad world of showbiz did not make her mother happy. 'She has never interfered in my life but I could see she was unhappy. I could understand it because everything she had read in magazines about the business has been so negative. I think she was worried I'd get mixed up with the wrong crowd but I told her if I was going to turn bad, I would have done it while I was on my own in England.'  Unlike some colleagues who have made the crossover into the bigger bucks of the film industry, Hsuan has decided to remain in the secure environment of television despite her growing popularity. What she likes is the novelty of working a 'regular' job which offers her irregular hours and what she wants to do are television series that offer her a chance to try an ever-widening range of roles.

 'At the beginning of my career, I admit I was tempted for a while. People kept telling me I should leave TVB and just do films. There was more money in it too. But after some thought I decided that I was still too naive to handle the film world.

 'The film world can be very complicated, especially for a woman if you don't have anyone to back you up,' she says.

 'And a lot of the roles offered to me weren't right. There were small roles which required me to be 'sexy' for no good reason. If they were big roles where it was necessary for a certain amount of sexiness, that's OK.'  Despite that, she has just finished a contemporary love story, starring opposite heart-throb Aaron Kwok Fu-shing.

 But for the time being, Hsuan says her heart is still in television.

 'They've given me the chance to try different roles. Last year was particularly good because I got to play a wide range of characters from a street ruffian to a princess in a costume drama. I wanted to play a character in the disciplinary forces and they gave me a role as a customs officer, which I am just finishing up,' she says.

 'Working in this environment is like being back in boarding school. You go to work and you get your stuff from the locker, you study your script and then you hand in your homework and act.' 



Reluctant leading lady