Though local actress Joanne Peh will now be separated from her Beijing-based actor-husband, Qi Yuwu, indefinitely, she’s not feeling anxious about it because they are “adaptable creatures”.
She moved to Beijing at the end of last year with their one-year-old daughter to stay with him, but returned to Singapore earlier this year to film her comeback Channel 8 TV drama Dream Coder, while Qi remains in Beijing for work.
The 33-year-old cited “communication” as her secret to making a long-distance marriage work at the lensing ceremony of the TV series yesterday.
Peh, who said she “doesn’t know” how long she’ll be away from Qi, told The New Paper: “Of course, I will miss my husband if he’s gone.
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(But) I think we are very lucky now that we have technology to help us make communication possible every single day at a very low cost.
“I always try to look at the positive side of things so that I have something positive to look forward to. (I tell myself things like) ‘Soon, we’ll be able to meet, two months later, I’ll go and find you’.”
Dream Coder is Peh’s first drama after almost two years away from the acting scene, but she’s feeling “quite confident of getting back into the groove” and has “no nerves” at all.
Neither does she feel any “mummy guilt” about leaving her baby alone at home with a nanny.
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“This separation is important for both our personal growths… It will benefit us in the long run. I look at more of the long run rather than the short-term separation,” said Peh.
A collaboration between Mediacorp and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Dream Coder starts production this week and Peh stars as a tai tai who gets abandoned by her cheating husband, and is left to take care of their eight-year-old daughter. Dream Coder is scheduled to premiere next February.
Her character will also be embroiled in a love triangle with Desmond Tan, 30, and Yao Wenlong, 45.
On chasing Peh, possibly the most attractive and one of the younger actresses he’s ever been paired with in his 20-year career, Yao told TNP: “It’s very refreshing and special, even though I feel like I’m losing out to Desmond.”
Tan added: “This is the first time (I’ve been paired with Joanne) and it’s also the first time Wenlong and I play love rivals. It’s a very fresh casting, which gives the story a lot of surprises.”
This article was first published on September 15, 2016.
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