Speaker 1: Hi George. It's been a while but I want to
Speaker 1: know how you've been. I mean it's been years.
Speaker 2: It's been a new years. Yeah it's been a few
Speaker 2: years what the kids say nowadays it's been a minute
Speaker 2: but it's been a hot minute. A lot of minutes.
Speaker 2: It's been a lot of minutes since we last spoke
Speaker 2: I think. Yeah
Speaker 2: I mean 2015, at least. You know
Speaker 1: how has the pandemic been treating you and your family
Speaker 1: and work
Speaker 2: like everyone.
Speaker 2: I love the pandemic. No, I mean we all hated
Speaker 2: the pandemic right? It got us all stuck inside initially.
Speaker 2: It was all fun and okay. Yeah. Well I can
Speaker 2: enjoy this little home time and then you just go
Speaker 2: crazy especially when you've got kids and family and you
Speaker 2: know everyone out there has had similar issues. It's a
Speaker 2: whole mess hasn't it? And then now we're still in it.
Speaker 2: We're just trying to slowly crawl out of our hermit
Speaker 2: crab existence and just see what's out there now. Real
Speaker 2: life
Speaker 1: since the last time I think we've spoken you have
Speaker 1: obviously moved and not only that, I mean your dad
Speaker 1: twice
Speaker 2: over. How
Speaker 1: has that been for you? I'm just trying to imagine
Speaker 1: you as a dad and all I'm thinking is that
Speaker 1: they're climbing all over you. You're the fun dad, you're
Speaker 1: not the disciplinarian at all doing everything
Speaker 2: was more relaxed and I am. I get anxiety about everything.
Speaker 2: I've always been the more anxious person and scared of things.
Speaker 2: Just scared of things in general Janet was always the
Speaker 2: more outgoing, adventurous one who's not afraid to do anything
Speaker 2: that was pre kids and then post kids, it's translated
Speaker 2: into how we parent. I am, I always the one
Speaker 2: who sees Egan or Dylan, my two kids, you know,
Speaker 2: they're standing somewhere a bit too, looks a bit to
Speaker 2: sketch and I'm worried they're going to fall, so I'm
Speaker 2: the one that's okay. Alright, so yes, so we're still
Speaker 2: like that and I am definitely not the relaxed dad.
Speaker 1: Are you loving the fatherhood? Are you feeling, are you
Speaker 1: feeling like, okay, this is this is good,
Speaker 2: gene you don't have any kids, right? You're you're Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can tell from your fresh face, you
Speaker 2: don't it's like yeah, I can tell from no bags
Speaker 2: under your eyes for me and this is with tons
Speaker 2: of makeup for me, For me it's yeah, it's been,
Speaker 2: there's there's so many more. Instead of this sort of
Speaker 2: like more moderate kind of level of happiness, you get
Speaker 2: these highs and you also get these sort of lows,
Speaker 2: the anxiety of parenting as well, but you get these
Speaker 2: new peaks and new troughs
Speaker 2: of emotion basically and I think it's an actor really
Speaker 2: has opened up a lot more in me that wasn't
Speaker 2: there before, maybe always locked inside before to the point
Speaker 2: where now I would also, in terms of emotionally, I
Speaker 2: would cry at anything, I used to cry a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff, but now you remember Avengers Endgame when Tony
Speaker 2: Stark says, I love you 9000, whenever he says 14,000
Speaker 2: everyone was correct and I always triple it. I just
Speaker 2: bawled my eyes out and also I was on a
Speaker 2: plane recently and I saw two rows down on a
Speaker 2: small screen, someone was watching up, remember up with that
Speaker 1: show, the balloon
Speaker 2: don't talk about it in the short film at the beginning,
Speaker 2: it just shows like this whole lifetime of love and
Speaker 2: they get one of them passes away. Spoiler alert, I
Speaker 2: was bawling just in the 1st 10 minutes, I wasn't
Speaker 2: watching my tv screen, I was watching like three rows
Speaker 2: down two or three rows down on someone else's seat.
Speaker 2: So when the flight attendant came past, I'm bawling and
Speaker 2: sitting in front of a blank screen, what is wrong
Speaker 2: with this guy? What is wrong with him? Well, so
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 1: love that, that is so nice. It's sort of open
Speaker 1: up your, your
Speaker 2: even more than I used to be the most emotional
Speaker 2: wreck and now I'm even more of an emotional wreck now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cute, George, that's lovable and you're right, you can
Speaker 1: tap into all that for all your acting work, isn't
Speaker 2: it? Absolutely true. The stakes, you can raise the stakes
Speaker 2: in a much more real way now I feel, I
Speaker 2: feel it really helps.
Speaker 2: But so to any actor out there, my best advice
Speaker 2: is to have kids, anyone and just have kids, you know,
Speaker 2: so
Speaker 1: congratulations on the film on your Hollywood
Speaker 2: debut can come that big? Yeah this scale. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Directed by James wan who is huge in the horror
Speaker 1: scene
Speaker 2: with the Conjuring,
Speaker 1: insidious, saw what was the experience like for you working
Speaker 1: on this film with him? He
Speaker 2: um
Speaker 2: it was terrible. No, he was your perfect director because
Speaker 2: when you talk to him face to face off camera
Speaker 2: and stuff, when you're not working, he's so jovial, he's
Speaker 2: so friendly, so down to earth makes you super relaxed.
Speaker 2: But then when you get to work and you're filming
Speaker 2: and its action,
Speaker 2: he knows exactly what he wants. He's super confident and
Speaker 2: he will guide you through this because he's made billions
Speaker 2: and billions of billions of dollars three times over with
Speaker 2: his franchise. So Aquaman sort et cetera. So I just
Speaker 2: went okay, James, whatever you say, let's do this. So
Speaker 2: he's your perfect director because you don't want someone who's
Speaker 2: nicely nice all the time, including at work and not, no,
Speaker 2: I don't really know what to do,
Speaker 2: he's not like that, he's nice to you. And then
Speaker 2: when it comes to work he's down to business and
Speaker 2: that's the perfect combination.
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of the horror genre? Is this
Speaker 1: your thing? Do you love it? Are you?
Speaker 2: I am not, I'm not really usually a fan of
Speaker 2: horror is too scary. Horror films, horror video games too scary.
Speaker 2: What am I
Speaker 1: saying? I shouldn't have asked because you cried it up.
Speaker 2: The main thing for me in terms of acting in
Speaker 2: this sort of is a lot more action. I don't
Speaker 2: know whether you've seen it yet,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of action for anyone who hasn't
Speaker 2: seen it yet. There's a lot of it's more like
Speaker 2: a slasher, like a retro James didn't want to go
Speaker 2: back to the horror genre that he's already worked on.
Speaker 2: If he was going to come back to direct an
Speaker 2: original thing, he wanted to do something that he's always
Speaker 2: wanted to do and that's the sort of retro genre,
Speaker 2: hollow style. I didn't didn't know what was at first,
Speaker 2: I thought it was an ice cream, like a retro
Speaker 2: italian noir, but it's more like an eighties slasher. So
Speaker 2: it's fun. But still there are some scary moments and
Speaker 2: I had to be there and my acting was basically
Speaker 2: to try not to burst into tears when I got scared. No.
Speaker 2: Cut
Speaker 2: George
Speaker 1: get it together.
Speaker 2: George,
Speaker 2: I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, I haven't watched the movie. I only watched
Speaker 1: the trailer and it scared me to bits
Speaker 2: trailer shows you an element of it, but it only
Speaker 2: shows you really small part of it. You don't, first
Speaker 2: of all you don't see a lot of me and
Speaker 2: that's the important thing here. Gene. I think we both agree.
Speaker 2: But but you but you will see it takes you
Speaker 2: on a
Speaker 2: a massive ride. It's just a crazy goes bonkers basically.
Speaker 2: Almost halfway around halfway through it goes just crazy,
Speaker 1: we need to talk about that shirtless scene, which I'm
Speaker 1: so disappointed. Did not make it in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, believe me. I was disappointed to there's a lot
Speaker 2: of work that went into that now.
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 2: What James told me
Speaker 2: was that it was too hot.
Speaker 2: No, no, he didn't say that when I wake up
Speaker 2: then I woke up I started crying. And what happened
Speaker 2: was when I first met James when I first knew
Speaker 2: I got the role, one of his first conversation with me.
Speaker 2: I was actually in Singapore at the time. He emailed
Speaker 2: me saying, hey George nice to meet you on email,
Speaker 2: I'll meet you soon in L. A. But first um
Speaker 2: do you mind I love this character if he was
Speaker 2: bulked up, only this kind of strong character and I
Speaker 2: said I was like happy to be there. I said yeah, James,
Speaker 2: whatever you want, what kind of body type do you want?
Speaker 2: You want to kind of chris Hemsworth like bulky or
Speaker 2: do you want more sort of cut? Like Bruce lee
Speaker 2: kind of cut, define and George young cut. And he
Speaker 2: said and he replied,
Speaker 2: oh bolt and cut would be great. I thought what?
Speaker 2: I have two months? I was in Singapore eating chicken rice. Everything.
Speaker 2: Maybe some ice ca chung as well. I was just
Speaker 2: the algorithm about two months and thankfully the studio paid
Speaker 2: for the producers paid for a personal trainer and stuff
Speaker 2: and just, we just went
Speaker 2: at it and I've never worked out so much in
Speaker 2: my life because think about jean, think of the fear
Speaker 2: of being on like a 40 ft screen permanently. Anything,
Speaker 2: any imperfections whatsoever is there forever. So that drove me
Speaker 2: and let me go to the gym. Anyone just think
Speaker 2: about to be on a massive screen all over the world.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I got worked out, got all ready
Speaker 2: for that scene. We filmed the scene, I have clips
Speaker 2: of it, I have recording of it and then because
Speaker 2: of the pacing, it's a very action packed pacing especially
Speaker 2: from the sort of right at the halfway point. It
Speaker 2: couldn't be too still. And there was a scene where
Speaker 2: I'm like my injuries were getting tended to and I
Speaker 2: had to reveal a little bit of the chest and
Speaker 2: I wanted to drop my trousers as well and he
Speaker 2: just didn't fit the ride that James constructed this roller
Speaker 2: coaster ride of the film. So we have talked about
Speaker 2: it and talked to him like the hashtag released the
Speaker 2: shirt that said to him
Speaker 2: at some point, it's definitely gonna be a deleted scene
Speaker 2: somewhere or in a special edition or somewhere when the
Speaker 2: DVD comes out, it has to be blu ray, whatever
Speaker 2: it has to Yeah, it's got to
Speaker 1: be
Speaker 2: releasing my footage for when I just recorded off it
Speaker 2: was there at the time. She recorded it.
Speaker 1: Did you at least do like a calendar shoot or
Speaker 1: something with all those with all that work that you
Speaker 2: could still do it just the same shot. I already
Speaker 2: did like not now
Speaker 2: but when I had it when I had that body
Speaker 2: the same shot and just do like a zoo lander
Speaker 2: like january, february, exactly the same image just with a
Speaker 2: different background color or something you know and then a
Speaker 2: santa hat like for december of course
Speaker 1: for all the other occasions, Halloween
Speaker 1: Janet must have been a happy, happy wife you know
Speaker 2: she noticed, yeah she was away for one month but
Speaker 2: for the first month I was filming here in L. A.
Speaker 2: And she was in Taiwan she came back for the
Speaker 2: second half of the filming and she noticed she said
Speaker 2: oh well you're a lot thicker, you've definitely, you're a
Speaker 2: lot more solid. She said to me and I knew
Speaker 2: there was a difference there,
Speaker 1: she approves, I mean
Speaker 2: she proved that it was, it was all paid for.
Speaker 2: So just thinking production for paying for that body and
Speaker 2: gave it back as soon as I finished
Speaker 1: what was your first like cheat meal the second, you
Speaker 1: know you were done with that. What did you have
Speaker 2: just carbs finally you know I just desserts, I didn't
Speaker 2: have the catering is always, I always compared the catering
Speaker 2: like Singapore when we're filming something, you get the lunch box,
Speaker 2: which I loved. I love it. But then it's very
Speaker 2: different in Hollywood. You get like
Speaker 2: order sushi, but then also you get an amazing desserts
Speaker 2: card like
Speaker 1: cakes
Speaker 2: and donuts or cupcakes and all this stuff and I
Speaker 2: couldn't have any of that when we were filming. So
Speaker 2: I went, what did I have?
Speaker 2: First of all, we went to a fast food place
Speaker 2: immediately after I did the shirt that me and Janet
Speaker 2: disorder just fries and burgers and all that stuff. And
Speaker 2: then I would have, I would have gotten some dessert
Speaker 2: would have been some sort of form of ice cream,
Speaker 2: just like a tub of ice and some and some
Speaker 2: baked goods, you know, whatever I
Speaker 1: can imagine
Speaker 2: it. Imagine this for a second listeners imagine
Speaker 2: all those beautiful desserts we can eat.
Speaker 1: Are you happy with how the movie turned out?
Speaker 2: I've been so happy with the reception, the audiences, the
Speaker 2: comments I'm going on instagram and stuff and just and
Speaker 2: the reviews, I mean people are getting it that there
Speaker 2: was James always said it was going to be a
Speaker 2: polarizing movie. It was going to split the audience down
Speaker 2: the middle. But really what we've found is a lot
Speaker 2: of the critics get it
Speaker 2: because they get that he's trying this new thing with
Speaker 2: the genre and and also homage to some of the
Speaker 2: heroes he directed it. Like brian de Palmer and David
Speaker 2: are Gento. These sort of people that he worshiped when
Speaker 2: he was growing up. So they got it. And the
Speaker 2: audience also, especially the horror fans, especially James, James wong fans.
Speaker 2: They all got it as well. So I'm really pleased
Speaker 2: with the reception. You get it for the there's so
Speaker 2: many highbrows sort of serious things and I love how
Speaker 2: horror and just film the general of pushing the envelope
Speaker 2: that way. But with something, you know, post Covid and everything.
Speaker 2: I just you want to get out of the house.
Speaker 2: See something that's just fun. This is this is just
Speaker 2: like a ride,
Speaker 2: like one of those thrill rides kind of thing,
Speaker 2: like a mixed bag of sweets with sugar. And again,
Speaker 1: what's next for you? I know you're in L. A.
Speaker 1: Right now. What's happening there? Are you working on something
Speaker 1: or you're going to take some time out right now?
Speaker 2: It's meetings I don't want to take any more time out.
Speaker 2: I mean thanks to Covid that was that was a
Speaker 2: big break. But it's meetings now since the movie it's
Speaker 2: just come out. So it's basically just kind of seeing
Speaker 2: what happens after this sort of the aftermath of that
Speaker 2: and what we can do whether it's L. A. Or wherever.
Speaker 2: So we're just seeing talked about the people three to
Speaker 2: someone at Mediacorp as well. And just saying if that
Speaker 2: ever happened because they're just good memories filming and they
Speaker 2: get the right team together. I'll get on the plane
Speaker 2: and do the quarantine like five year quarantine. I can't
Speaker 2: remember
Speaker 1: about their
Speaker 2: half a decade.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you miss working here in Singapore?
Speaker 2: There was so much fun. I mean, it's Singapore is just,
Speaker 2: I made so many friends there. I had so much fun.
Speaker 2: It was, it's what developed my career. I mean, I
Speaker 2: did some stuff before Singapore, but really on the scale
Speaker 2: that I could do at the platform that we have
Speaker 2: in Singapore and it was an amazing experience and develop
Speaker 2: my confidence in this realm and developed a fan base
Speaker 2: as well. And it helped. It did help, but it
Speaker 2: did translate to the west. I think Singapore. The beauty
Speaker 2: of Singapore's, you have mandarin and english and you know,
Speaker 2: all sorts of different languages, you have those options and
Speaker 2: including english. So it could translate to the west. So
Speaker 2: for me it was
Speaker 2: an amazing place to grow my career. I would love
Speaker 2: to come back If the right project comes in then
Speaker 2: of course
Speaker 1: that would be great. It would be so nice to
Speaker 1: have you back for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Just don't need to do a shirtless scene. I'm just
Speaker 2: saying that I don't want to work that hard again,
Speaker 2: workout that hard. I mean, I will if you need me,
Speaker 2: if people need me to fine, I'll do it. But
Speaker 2: yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean, hey, this huge. You know Hollywood deal comes in
Speaker 1: and says, all right George, You know, you're going to
Speaker 1: be mostly shirtless, you, you're going to do it.
Speaker 2: You're
Speaker 1: working out every day
Speaker 2: and we have a deal.
Speaker 1: Well, it's been so lovely chatting with you George. Is
Speaker 1: there anything you want to say to your fans are
Speaker 1: watching or listening to this right now?
Speaker 2: Gene and anyone who hasn't seen malignant yet, it's out
Speaker 2: in theaters right now. Go see it. It's a fun ride. People,
Speaker 2: some people say they're not, they don't like scary movies.
Speaker 2: This is more
Speaker 2: of a fun kind of thriller slasher kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So enjoy
Speaker 1: if I end up crying, I'm going to call you
Speaker 1: or something like George.
Speaker 2: You're not crying. I'll understand. Believe me, I'm the person.
Speaker 2: I'll cry with you. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Thank you, George. So nice chatting with you.
Speaker 2: Nice to chat with you to see you.