Actress Myolie Wu is tight-lipped about her boyfriend, but is all smiles about dogs and chimps in her shows

Actress Myolie Wu is tight-lipped about her boyfriend, but when it comes to the dogs and chimps in her shows, she is all smiles

Hong Kong actress Myolie Wu plays a blind woman with a guide dog in Every Step You Take with co-star Moses Chan. -- PHOTO: TVB
Hong Kong actress Myolie Wu plays a blind woman with a guide dog in Every Step You Take with co-star Moses Chan. -- PHOTO: TVB

Hong Kong actress Myolie Wu, 35, is a woman in love. She breaks into smiles at the mention of her Hong Kong businessman beau Philip Lee, but treads carefully to protect him.

"I appreciate how he has to sacrifice a lot to be with me, especially his privacy. Although I'm open about the relationship, I still don't want to talk about it," says Wu in a mix of Mandarin and English in a recent interview.

She heaves a sigh when talking about how they have become fodder for the paparazzi in Hong Kong. The loving pair have been snapped holding hands on the streets in Hong Kong and kissing in Taiwan.

With every new sighting of the lovey-dovey pair, speculation mounts that marriage is on the cards for them.

"All I can say is that I'm not going to get married and not tell anyone. I won't be sneaky. If I do get married, I will announce it to everyone," says Wu.

She explains that she is more open about her current relationship because her boyfriend is not in show business - she does not want her romantic life to overshadow her professional work.

"If the other party is in show business, I wouldn't want the media to ask me about our relationship all the time because I would want to protect our work," says Wu, alluding to her previous relationship with Hong Kong actor Bosco Wong.

One of her recent dramas is the upcoming TVB drama Every Step You Take, in which she plays a blind person and has a guide dog for a co-star.

Well, two labrador dogs, actually - a guide dog and an "actor" dog, both of which take turns to play the role of her guide dog in the drama.

Brightening up when talk turned to the animals, Wu says: "They have different characters. The guide dog is not affectionate, which is strange for a dog. But that's what it needs to be a guide dog - to be alert, assertive, calm.

"The other dog is full of emotions. He loves to eat," she says.

"He was too fat at the beginning, so he had to lose weight to look like the other dog."

Wu also showed her maternal side when taking care of young chimpanzees during her zookeeper stint on the China reality show Wonderful Friends. She is seen helping to clean the chimps and feed them water from a bottle.

She says: "I don't have experience looking after children, so I had difficulties initially. I felt like I was looking after someone's kid. I was worried about how I would account to their parents if they got hurt.

"Eventually, I felt like they were my own kids. It's not work to look after them, I was doing it from the heart.

"I worried if they were cold or hungry."

It is no surprise, then, that she is now confident of being a good mother.

She says: "If I have the chance to (be a mum) in future, at least I won't be afraid that I won't be up to the task."

nggwen@sph.com.sg

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