Charmaine Sheh almost rejected ‘Story of Yanxi Palace’ role

Hong Kong actress Charmaine Sheh, who has long been touted as one of Hong Kong’s A-listers, is experiencing a surge in her popularity due to her role in the well-received period drama, Story of Yanxi Palace. Recently, she sat down for an interview, where she shared that she almost pushed away the Story of Yanxi Palace offer, due to five factors.

The actress shared that the drama was filmed in the middle of summer, in July. This meant that the cast would have to battle sweltering hot weather while decked out in thick period costumes, causing great discomfort. At that time, she was also filming for a movie in Malaysia, thus, she had to fly back and forth between the two countries multiple times.

To complicate matters, the drama would require all actors to speak in Mandarin, something that Charmaine, who usually spoke Cantonese, was not exactly comfortable with.

She had also gotten into a car accident a while back, injuring her cervical vertebra, which made her unable to wear the elaborate headpieces most period dramas are associated with for too long. As her empress character was one of the main antagonists in the drama, Charmaine was also wary of the public’s backlash, if she were to go ahead and take the role.

However, despite her many worries, her manager and the producer of Story of Yanxi Palace managed to assuage her fears, and convince her to take the role.

In other unrelated news, Charmaine also lamented that it was hard to make friends in the entertainment industry, when asked about the reports of discord between the various actresses in TVB.

She shared that as they are all from the same company, it’s inevitable that there will be a little competition between the stars. Though they don’t harbour any hatred or ill-feelings towards the other, it’s hard not to get influenced by the numerous reports from the media outlets.

Charmaine recounted an incident, where she had to stand beside her direct rival at an awards ceremony. At that time, her rival had rolled her eyes when she saw Charmaine, treating her as if she was invisible. Charmaine expressed that she still does not know what she did to anger the other party, even up till today.

After the interview aired, many netizens got curious as to who Charmaine was referring to in the interview, and searched through old videos and interviews for a hint. Soon enough, a netizen posted that Charmaine was once said to have not gotten along with Maggie Cheung. While the duo was filming War And Beauty together, it was said that they barely spoke to each other.

Gigi Lai was also rumoured to have been on bad terms with Charmaine. In an interview Gigi once said, “I know that she’s not a bad person, and that she only wants to protect herself. I’m the same,” when asked about Charmaine.

Photos: PBE Media

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