Gillian Chung Yan-tung of the Canto-pop duo Twins went through the darkest period of her life after being caught up in scandal when sex photos from Edison Chen Koon-hei's laptop were posted on the internet in early 2008. The singer-actress lost a series of jobs including an appearance at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and roles in movies such as Chen Kaige's Mei Lanfang and Oliver Stone's W.
The 29-year-old is finally back in young director Heiward Mak's new drama Ex, about a young woman's relationship with her former boyfriend (William Chan Wai-ting).
Ex is the first movie you've made since the photo scandal. Does it have a different meaning for you?
Actually, the first movie I made [after the scandal] was Jeffrey Lau Chun-wai's comedy, Just Another Pandora's Box, but that was a cameo role. I'm really grateful to Chapman To [the producer of Ex) and Jeffrey for giving me a chance.
Chapman has been very supportive. He talked to my manager and said he wanted this movie to be my comeback role. No one dared to take the risk. But he and Jeffrey thought that if someone took the first step and gave me a movie role, others would start to offer acting work again.
Jeffrey Lau has also been very supportive all the time. The Fantastic Water Babes, which was filmed few years ago, was our first collaboration. Since then, we've kept in touch, even during my darkest days. No matter how busy he was, he would take me to dinner and talk to me about adversity in his life. His situation was even more worse than mine but, look at him, he is really fine now. So I think you can stand up again if you work really hard and overcome the obstacles.