How well do you know Romeo Tan, the celeb fanboy who became an actor?

Many celebrities we know and love today came from the Star Search talent competition that looked for budding actors. Romeo Tan is one of them. He participated in the 2010 iteration and came in fourth behind Jeffrey Xu (champion), Peggy Lin and Adeline Lim.

Shortly after his Star Search run, Romeo Tan scored a role in the 2011 police drama C.L.I.F. From then on, his career was only on an upwards trajectory as he clinched Star Awards’ Rocket Award in 2013 that commended his improvement in acting. A year later, he was credited to be one of the biggest upcoming male stars as he was named one of the Eight Dukes of Caldecott Hill alongside the likes of Desmond Tan, Xu Bin and the late Aloysius Pang.

To date, Romeo has worked on notable dramas such as Joys of Life (2012), The Dream Makers II (2015), Life Less Ordinary (2018) and Soul Old Yet So Young (2021). Under his belt are also multiple acting award nominations and eight Star Awards‘ Top 10 Most Popular Male Artiste wins.

Romeo Tan’s nominations and wins were forged through hard work. And once upon a time, Romeo Tan was scolded for his bad acting. This began before he was on Star Search where he worked as an extra. After the competition, there were incidents when directors scolded him saying, “Stop filming! You can’t act!”.

In a 2022 interview with Shin Min Daily News, Romeo Tan expressed uncertainties about his path forward as an actor. Firstly, his personality has been impacted by the roles he played. “After acting for so many years, every time I act in a show, it is a fact my drama roles that affect me. I may become more like certain characters and my original personality got blurred.”

Romeo then expressed that he wants to try different roles that are different from the Prince Charming-type roles he gets typecasted in. Besides roles in the military, “I could also take on a role as a lunatic, someone with split personalities or act in movies with horror or bizarre themes — I’d love to try that.”

Finally, Romeo added that he wishes to study acting in China because he likes their acting styles. “I hope to go out and see the world, learning what is taught outside — if time permits, of course. I’ve gone abroad to act before and I’ve learned different things from the experiences. Instead of short courses, I yearn to one day be able to go overseas and study for a good length of time.”

Call him Photographer Tan. ICYDK, Romeo Tan is an avid photographer and has an Instagram account to post his works. The actor caught the photography bug when he took up multiple photography modules while he was studying arts and design in polytechnic. He loves sunset photography the most as the myriad of colours adds depth to the photos.

Romeo also shared this tip on travel photography. “Don’t be afraid to take more pictures. Some people can be stingy when it comes to snapping pics as they want to save memory space. I’d suggest investing in more memory cards so that you can take as many pictures as you want without worrying. It’s always better to have more pics to choose from. Another tip is to be patient. I’d usually take one shot, and wait for a while to see if anything changes within the next few minutes. A person could walk into the frame and it could give your picture an entirely different vibe!”

Do you know those groups of fans that would stake out and chase their celebrity idols? Romeo Tan used to be one of them when he was younger. “I feel that chasing celebs is something that every kid would have experienced at that point of time. Maybe some people don’t like doing it, but there are also a group of them who do.”

In fact, Romeo has a collection of photographs and CDs, which includes artistes such as Fann Wong, Zoe Tay and Ann Kok. “I used to watch TV a lot so I’d notice these actors. Or people in class would say, ‘Eh! I really like this actor!’ and people would start talking about how they had their autographed photo and so on. At the time, a lot of shops sold such photos which cost 30 to 50 cents each.”

“I was so fat and lazy. I had low self-esteem and I didn’t dare to look people in the eye.” That was how Romeo Tan described his younger self during a social outreach programme at ITE College East in 2015. “I was very demoralised as I was always getting scolded for the most part of my childhood. Some teachers even called me Fat Romeo.” His lack of self-esteem would cause him to act out against his parents and tutors, even to the point of taking MCs and skipping school.

It was in ITE that he decided to turn his life around by running six times a week, controlling his diet, becoming more chatty and studying harder. Romeo eventually lost 20kg and later became who he is today.

In Singapore, there are a few celebrity best friends. Rui En and Dennis Chew are one, for example, and Romeo Tan and Elvin Ng are another. Their friendship was so strong that prior to owning his own place, Romeo would stay over at Elvin’s as his Simei family home was too far from Mediacorp.

The two shared on The Inner Circle that they had first met on the set of C.L.I.F (2011). And after more than a decade of friendship, the pair knows each other so well that they can speak fondly about each other.

Speaking of Romeo Tan and Elvin Ng, the pair have actually gone overseas together. A 2019 trip to Taipei was especially eventful when the MPV taxi that the two were in got rear-ended by a coach bus. They were there to promote the drama All Is Well (2019). Fortunately, the two got out unscathed and unharmed.

“We’re very lucky because we were in this MPV. The driver of the first cab that we got rejected us. His was a sedan, and the accident could have been a lot more serious if we were in his vehicle. The rear windscreen shattered completely, so the glass might have rained down on us. However, because it was an MPV that we were in, the glass fragments fell into the boot instead.”

In a 2020 interview with Lianhe Wanbao, Romeo Tan discussed an incident when a scammer impersonated him to scam someone. The con man took a video clip of Romeo’s, recorded his own voice over it and then tried to scam a Thai woman for US$1,000. The fan, however, didn’t know who Romeo was and after much research, fortunately, realised that it was a scam.

“I’ve received so many messages about fake accounts that I’m numb to it. But what scared me this time was that there was a video, and it was cropped so that the mouth couldn’t be seen during the dubbing. The female netizen told me that the conman knew many things about my life. I think he has been observing me online for a while, and he’s able to find out things about me and use my details to cheat others. It’s scary and it’s hard to stop these things from happening.”