However, Yeoh clarified that her self-imposed house arrest has more to do with her being “quite the homebody” who doesn’t go out much unless it’s for work.
Interestingly, she never thought Kang Si Li would be this evil.
Yeoh even naively thought she was “quite virtuous” during early auditions.
“Unfortunately, not,” she laughed.
However, Yeoh told us that during a script reading, she made the creative decision to make her character “more obnoxious and flamboyant” though it wasn’t initially written as such.
“I wanted to make this character pop, giving a different dynamic from the other characters,” she added.
And pop she did.
So much so, that viewers seem to have taken a shine to the loud Kang Si Li.
According to Yeoh, her social media inbox has been flooded with messages about her “irritating and evil” character.
“The word ‘irritating’ appears the most,” Yeoh laughed.
“There was even someone who said, ‘You are so irritating. I hate you, but I love you!’” she giggled.
Even her friends have joined in on the teasing.
Yeoh shared an Instagram story where a clip of her character in the show was captioned, “Can you Diam?”. “Diam” is Malay for keep quiet.
“It’s only because he’s a close friend that he dared to be so crude to me,” she laughed.
Of course, Yeoh is lapping it all up and said that she has also received feedback from viewers in Malaysia and China.
“It is very rewarding to hear people speaking about my role,” she said, admitting that even though she has played a villain before they were “nothing as meaty or heavy as this”.
However, Yeoh let on that portraying Kang Si Li felt like “an emotional rollercoaster”.
Like her co-star Chantalle Ng, who opened up to 8days.sg about her mental health struggles during filming, Yeoh had her tough moments too.
“It was emotionally draining to be this character, and at times made me a little emotional,” she said.
“Only after filming wrapped, did Chantalle and I realise how we were so affected by our characters,” said Yeoh.
It might be early days, but with all the attention Yeoh is getting from Emerald Hill, we are sure a possible nomination for a Star Award has crossed her mind, right?
After all, she has never been nominated for an acting award and was last in the running for the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes at Star Awards 2021.
“Wow…” mused Yeoh before saying that many people have asked her this question.
“My take is that I’ve never thought so much about nominations and awards. But if it comes to that, then I think I will be very happy,” she said.
