Christopher Lee nominated for Golden Bell award

Christopher Lee (with wife Fann Wong) is up for Best Actor In A Mini-series Or TV Film for playing a closeted gay man in The Long Goodbye (2017).
Christopher Lee (with wife Fann Wong) is up for Best Actor In A Mini-series Or TV Film for playing a closeted gay man in The Long Goodbye (2017). PHOTO: ST FILE

Former Channel 8 star Christopher Lee, who won Best Actor in 2014 at Taiwan's prestigious Golden Bell Awards, may bring home another prize next month from the same event.

Lee, 46, is up for Best Actor In A Mini-series Or TV Film for playing a closeted gay man in the TV movie The Long Goodbye (2017).

While he says he is "feeling pretty confident" about his chances, he does not want to get his hopes up.

"I have to just remain cool about this. So, if I don't win, I won't be too disappointed. Regardless, I am honoured and excited about being nominated again," he tells The Straits Times.

The Long Goodbye tells of how his character, after hearing news that a man he had a crush on in college has died, decides to return to his hometown 30 years after leaving.

Up against him for the award in the same category are Taiwanese actors Wu Kang-ren, Alex Ko, Fu Meng-po and Lan Wei-hua.

The awards will be held on Sept 30.

This is Lee's third nomination at the event, widely considered Taiwan's equivalent of the Emmys in the United States, which celebrates the best performance and technical talents in the broadcast industry.

In 2012, he was nominated for Best Actor In A Mini-series for Forgotten, in which he played the husband of an amnesiac.

Two years later, he won Best Actor for the TV drama A Good Wife, in which he played a successful architect with marital woes.

Since signing with Taiwanese modelling and artiste agency Catwalk in 2012, the Malaysia-born actor has been fronting major Taiwanese TV productions.

Although the bulk of his work is in Taiwan these days, he still acts in at least one Singaporean production a year so that he can spend more time with his family, who are living here.

He is filming Channel 8 drama Doppelganger with his Singaporean actress wife Fann Wong, 46. This is the first time in eight years that the celebrity couple are acting together again, after they last co-starred in the movie The Wedding Game (2009).

In Doppelganger, Lee plays a stockbroker who steals the identity of a look-alike after the latter dies. Fann plays the widow. It is slated to air in March.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 25, 2017, with the headline Christopher Lee nominated for Golden Bell award. Subscribe