Dr. Soo Wincci is a woman of many accolades, beauty queen, actress, producer, singer, professor, hoarder of Malaysian book of records titles (and educational degrees), and for the purposes of our interview today, she’s an actress in a new Astro Original chinese drama, The Queen’s Ploy.
The story is about Fang Hua (played by Wincci Soo), a kind-hearted but reckless single mother who is always obliging to lend a hand to those in need. Her life takes a tragic turn when she falls victim to a scam, losing her daughter's education fund.
However, a chance encounter with an intriguing man, Professor Choy (played by Jack Lim) propels her into a world where she transforms from prey to predator. The 15-episodes series sees Wincci’s character evolve from a humble community leader to a ruthless scammer.
We catch up with the star to talk about her preparation for the role, the challenges in shooting, and filming that one terrible scene in episode 1.
Auditioning for the role of Fang Hua
“Definitely you have to go audition, but it was also pitched to me as well,” says Wincci. We asked if we should call her Dr or Professor, but she answered “Cincai-lah”. We loved her for that.
She was playing against type as she’s usually cast in the “Queen” roles for Chinese dramas or the “Obedient” ones in Malay dramas, so when the team told her that this role is actually that of a villain, they were hesitant to ask her.
Though they had auditioned others for the role, the part was written with her in mind, and Wincci saw that she could pull it off. The writing started in 2022 and shooting was completed this year.
The difficulty of the role
“I remember I told [Jeff Lim], halfway through the shooting, ‘Can I stop acting? It’s too hard already this role’”.
She remembers a day of shooting where she had to cry for 6 hours and revealed that she had speaking roles in almost every episode and that they were long. Add to that, she had not acted in a local Chinese production in 6 years, so she had to “tune herself” to get into the role.
Despite the hardships, she pressed on “for the sake of the industry” and revealed that locals actors want to bring the industry up as well which is what attracted all of them to the project.
“Original content is the most precious IP (Intellectual Property), but nobody knows. If we don’t push our own local productions, how can we survive? Look at Korea and China, their industries have grown since the time of TVB.”
“My dream is just to sing, but in Malaysia, if you want to survive, you have to do everything.” She also sings the main theme of Queen’s Ploy and produces the ending theme as well.
Preparation for the role
Wincci said that she actually wanted to intern at a local pasar to get into her character but she didn’t have the time because it was during Chinese New Year. So instead, she just listened to how they spoke and tried to pick it up.
The cast would have phone calls with each other at night to practise their lines after a day of shooting because the shooting schedules during the day was so packed.
The director was initially also worried because during the table read, Wincci didn’t sound convincing as a mom. Joey Leong, who plays her daughter, gave her a note to help her performance, “Just treat me like how you treat your dog.” Then it worked.
As for how she juggles going from pasar Aunty to Queen in between shoots, Wincci says that her pasar character is more naive and doesn’t think before she speaks. The Queen however, is subtle and is always strategising while hiding her identity.
Shooting that one scene… in the drain
All the pasar scenes were shot on location at a real market and in episode 1, there’s a scene where Wincci’s character has to go into a drain to remove a blockage that’s clogging the drain.
The scene made us squirm and we thought that there was no way she would actually go into one of Malaysia’s drains.
We asked if she actually went down into the water, and she said “Oh yeah, it is a true drain. They tried their best to clean it up but it’s still very dirty. And then, how long was the scene? Because I was down there for 6 hours.”
“Then there is a scene where I had to emerge from the drain at another point but it was very shallow so I had to crouch down in the drain before emerging… It was damn dirty-lah.”
The day didn't end there however as she had to immediately get back into her Queen character for the next scene. She told us that she had to shower in the stalls of the pasar with just a pipe and cold water before being glammed up.
Talk about dedication to the role.
If you're interested to catch Soo Wincci's turn as a pasar aunty breaking bad, watch The Queen's Ploy on Astro AEC and Astro GO, every Friday night, 9.30pm. There are 15 episodes with the finale airing on 19 January 2024.