My Star Bride's Chantalle Ng reveals who taught her Vietnamese accent

SINGAPORE - Local actress Chantalle Ng has won kudos for her role as a Vietnamese bride in the Mediacorp drama My Star Bride, which is now showing on Channel 8.

Several viewers have praised Ng, who played the character Mei Fangcao or Mai Phuong Thao in Vietnamese, for speaking Mandarin with a convincing Vietnamese accent.

On Tuesday (Feb 16), Ng, 25, revealed the person who helped her with the accent - her friend's manicurist, who was herself a Vietnamese bride.

She posted a photo of them together on social media, writing: "This lady right here is who I learned my Vietnamese accent from! She read all my lines so I could perform as accurately as possible. Thank you Kim, couldn't have done this without you!"

Last October, she told local evening daily Lianhe Wanbao: "I feel a bit disgusted when I see foreigners playing Singaporeans but do not look the part at all.

"So I hope to ask a Vietnamese person to teach me the accent so that viewers can see the most authentic Vietnamese bride (in the show)."

She also revealed in another interview with Wanbao in February that there was a Vietnamese coach on set to help her with the language.

Ng said she became so immersed in the Vietnamese accent that she continued to speak with it after filming ended. She had to take Mandarin lessons to shake off the accent.

Ng, who won Best Newcomer at the Star Awards in 2018 for While We Are Young (2017), has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the upcoming Star Awards for Terror Within (2020).

She is up against the likes of her mother Lin Meijiao, Cynthia Koh and Aileen Tan, who are also her co-stars in My Star Bride.

The show also features Xu Bin, Edwin Goh, Gini Chang and Desmond Ng.