10 facts to know about beloved local actor Pierre Png

Pierre Png began acting in 1998 in the musical film Forever Fever before scoring the role of Phua Chu Beng in the iconic English sitcom Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd a year later. A few years later, Pierre Png made the cross into Mandarin television and has starred in many recognisable productions including Holland V (2003), Portrait of Home (2005) and The Journey: A Voyage (2013). More recently, he starred in Jungle Survivor (2020) and Healing Heroes (2022).

Since winning the talent search competition Fame Awards in 1998, Pierre Png has added multiple acting accolades under his belt. In 2014, he clinched the Star Awards Best Actor win for The Journey: A Voyage. This year, he was awarded Best Actor at the 2022 Asian Academy Creative Awards for his role in This Land is Mine.

We can’t talk about Pierre Png’s achievements without mentioning his work as Michael Teo in the Hollywood movie Crazy Rich Asians (2018). Likewise, we can’t talk about his role in the movie without mentioning this shower scene.

Perhaps, Michael Teo wouldn’t be Pierre Png’s first and last Hollywood role. It was reported in 2021 that he signed with Luber Roklin Entertainment and Gersh for representation in the USA. With this move, we could see more of Pierre Png in other Hollywood productions.

In 2020, Pierre Png made his directorial debut when he directed the television series The Right Time. Speaking about the opportunity, he added that being a director has helped him learn to see things from different perspectives, such as managing the budget and limited shooting time while wanting to give room for actors to develop the character.

In 2002, now-wife Andrea de Cruz suffered from liver failure after consuming the Slim 10 weight loss pills. In a move that made headlines, Pierre Png donated part of his liver to her in order to save her life. This also happened to be the first liver transplant involving a non-related living donor that was approved by the Ministry of Health. On the decision, Pierre Png shared that it was a no-brainer as he “couldn’t see my life without her.”

In 2021, Pierre Png and Andrea de Cruz opened the restaurant-bar Tipsy Flamingo in Raffles City. The beach-themed concept is an offshoot of the Tipsy Collective. Prior to this, Pierre Png co-owned the 3O1 Bar & Kitchen at HomeTeamNS Sembawang which shuttered in 2020.

Earlier in February 2022, Pierre Png shared with 8days that he had reconnected with a primary school friend while playing a game called DomiNations. He was chatting with a teammate who happened to have a former classmate named Pierre Png. The actor tricked him and after some laughs, the two reunited.

Prior to the circuit breaker, Pierre Png was actively involved in the Land Rover Owners Singapore car club. Together with the club, they teamed up with the Willing Hearts organisation to help deliver food to homes.

On helping others, Pierre Png shared “It did open my eyes to the living conditions of some people. Sometimes a door would be open and you take a peek inside and see that there are some who are not as fortunate as you are. So there’s always a warm and “cold” or sad feeling when doing charity. You count your blessings, but at the same time you also want to do more. I believe life is meaningless if you just hoard everything and don’t share what you have with others.”

After needing to learn ballet to play a professional ballet dancer for the show The Gentlemen (2016), Pierre Png fell head over heels for the art form despite initial hesitation. In fact, he loved it so much that he continued learning it after going through a crash course for the show.

“I continued dancing ballet because I’m such a perfectionist. I wanted to do a nice pirouette. You can do it for TV because it’s edited, and you can do it again. But I want to, at the snap of a finger, do a pirouette, or just some of the routines that I could not achieve in one take. Looking back, I think I was afraid (at the start) but the more affirmation I got from my instructors, the more I felt free. It felt really good to achieve those poses and movements. It was addictive. It’s a lot better than saying my lines in Mandarin!”

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