It has been a good year for home-grown actor Pierre Png. After snagging the Star Award for Best Actor in April, he walked home with another Best Actor award on Thursday night, at the Asian TV Awards held at Marina Bay Sands.
The boyishly handsome 41-year-old won the award for playing a man who is blackmailed into committing crime by an anonymous person on the Channel 5 drama Zero Calling.
Holding the trophy in his hand, he said excitedly: "Anyone who says that it's okay to be just nominated and not win is lying. This is the best feeling ever. This is the best year ever."
He was in fact a double nominee in the category as he was also up for the prize for his villainous turn in the Channel 8 period drama The Journey: A Voyage.
Nabbing the Best Actress award was adorable Malaysian child star Puteri Balqis Azizi, 7, who won for the telemovie.
She said sweetly that winning was "unbelievable", which prompted everyone in the audience to coo and laugh.
Singapore came out strong on the comedy front. Channel 5 sitcom Spouse For House scored a hat-trick - winning for Best Comedy Programme, Best Original Screenplay and Best Comedy Performance for Irene Ang.
Ang, who won the same award in 2002, said: "I'm really very shocked by the win, as shocked as I was when I won this award for Phua Chu Kang in 2002. This is just fabulous, and I thank God for giving me this talent for making other people laugh."
Incidentally, Png was also in the sitcom Phua Chu Kang, as Ang's brother-in-law.
Local actor Rayson Tan won the award for Best Supporting Actor for Entangled, while Best Supporting Actress went to Taiwanese star Hsieh Chiung-hsuan for Lonely River.
The award for Best Drama Series went to Japanese workplace drama Naoki Hanazawa.
The Asian TV Awards, in its 19th edition this year, is an annual awards show to mark excellence in TV production and performance in programmes across Asia.
This year saw a total of 239 nominees in 38 award categories, judged by a panel of 64 industry professionals hailing from across the region.
