Former Mediacorp star Tay Ping Hui never wanted to be in showbiz, let alone an actor.
In a recent episode of Allan Wu’s YouTube series Call Us Daddy, the 54-year-old, a National University of Singapore Economics and Political Science double major, shared that he had set his sights on becoming a banker or economist, but fate had other plans.
At 18 years old, while preparing to enter the army, Tay was scouted on the streets by top Singaporean model Seraphina Fong. He saw modelling as a way to earn money for university, so he gave it a shot.
His talent and striking looks eventually landed him on Mediacorp’s radar, and they offered him an acting contract.
Admitting that he didn’t even know who Ah Jie Zoe Tay and Li Nanxing were then, Tay asked the company to make him an offer.
He immediately rejected it after seeing the number.
Instead, he pursued a corporate career, becoming a general manager at Subway for about five years while planning to pursue an MBA at Harvard University.
In 1998, Mediacorp came knocking again, this time offering Ping Hui a role in crime anthology series On The Edge.
Since it was a one-episode job, he thought it “could be fun” and agreed.
Tay was offered another contract after On The Edge, and he told Mediacorp that he would “consult [his] lawyer”, which turned out to be himself.
“I just changed the contract, I had nothing to lose. When I got to the final number, I thought ‘why not?’ and changed it,” he recalled, adding that he insisted on a single one-year contract as he still “wasn’t sure” back then.
