Singaporean actor Ng Chin Han could not get his head around the idea that he would be in The Dark Knight until he was brought from Heathrow Airport to the sound stage.
'Only then did I realise I was in the film, walking into my trailer and seeing Christian Bale nearby,' says Ng, recalling his first day on the set of the follow-up to Batman Begins. 'The next thing I knew, they brought me to see [director] Chris Nolan. Next to him were the Batpod and the Tumbler. Even now it seems very much like a dream.'
The dream has indeed come true for the 38-year-old actor, who plays criminal kingpin Lau in the latest Batman film, and is part of a star-studded cast that includes Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger.
Ng began acting as a teen in classical plays, including Moliere's L'Ecole des femmes and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. 'After I graduated, I toyed with the idea of working in banking or doing post-graduate studies in law - for all of a day,' he jokes.
Eventually, Ng transitioned to screen acting, starring in Singapore's first English-language television series, Masters of the Sea. He also acted in films such as Blindness, a noir thriller about a fractured family, and the Aids drama 3 Needles, with Lucy Liu and Chloe Sevigny.
Ng has also directed and produced for theatre, including controversial plays The Blue Moon and Mee Pok Man, which explore sexuality and prostitution. 'I like to explore the deeper recesses of human nature,' he says. 'The more we understand, the less we have to fear.'