Things to know about the bubbly Priscelia Chan and the difficult skin condition she had to overcome to act again

The talent search competition Star Search has introduced many new faces into the local celebrity pool ranging from the likes of Zoe Tay and Ivy Lee to Jacelyn Tay and Felicia Chin. Priscelia Chan is also among the roster of alumni. She participated in the 1999 edition and was offered a contract with then-Television Corporation of Singapore (now Mediacorp) despite not winning the contest. The winners of that year were Vivian Lai and Jeff Wang. Qi Yuwu was also a participant in the same year.

Prior to her acting career, Priscelia Chan was said to be a tax auditor.

Shortly after the Star Awards, Priscelia Chan began acting in The Legendary Swordsman (2000) before scoring her first lead role in In Pursuit Of Peace a year later.

In 2013, she was awarded the Star Awards' Rocket Award for her portrayal of Han Xiuxiang in The Journey: A Voyage (2013), which commended her stark acting improvement. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the same role but lost to Rebecca Lim.

One award that Priscelia Chan has yet to bring home, though, is the hotly followed Top 10 Most Popular Female Artiste trophy.

Astute fans of local television might realise that Priscelia Chan disappeared from our small screens between 2017 to 2019. The break wasn't planned or a relaxing one for her, however. She revealed in 2019 that her hiatus was due to her struggles with health.

The issues began when family members noticed that her lips started to take on a bluish hue. Priscelia Chan didn't realise that she was under a lot of stress due to work and personal issues. Her condition then worsened as inflamed rashes started appearing. "I could feel that my whole system was not right. I felt breathless, I felt very weak, I couldn’t even talk (normally). I couldn’t even sweat. I always felt cold. It’s so worrying – you don’t know what’s wrong with your body, but when you do a checkup, you’re fine."

Priscelia Chan was later diagnosed with eczema and sought alleviation from both Western and traditional Chinese medicine. Nothing solved the problem and she even had to endure topical steroid withdrawal when her skin became red and raw with burning and swelling sensations.

"I never knew that 24 hours were so hard to endure. In my worst state, I could not stop looking in the mirror. And the irony was, I was an actress. I was really not vain. I didn’t take lots of selfies and I didn’t look at myself in the mirror. (But) in my darkest days, I kept staring at the mirror until my husband told me, ‘You have to stop.’ I couldn’t recognise myself in the mirror, because I was no longer me. You’ve lost everything – your looks; the fear of losing the career you’ve worked so hard for."

Priscelia Chan eventually started feeling better through proper nutrition, rest and the right TCM practitioner. "The way is really to change your lifestyle. Change your food choices and the way you handle your stress and the way you look at your life sometimes. So don’t just shove it off and try to hide it with a band-aid."

Priscelia Chan's dietary changes include replacing all sugary and processed foods with wholesome, less-processed alternatives, which made it especially difficult to find suitable alternatives or enjoy the foods she used to. She also went gluten-free for a period and is an advocate for organic produce.

Besides what she ate, Priscelia Chan also uncovered that stress was a major contributing factor to her predicament. "Sometimes I think we urbanites don’t even know how stressed we really are. The stress unknowingly starts because we live in a society where we’re always trying to outbid ourselves, so we keep pushing and pushing. We all want to be perfect, flawless, invincible in our jobs."

At a workshop to pick up counselling skills, Priscelia Chan underwent a personal breakthrough when she realised what her biggest fear was. "I wanted to help people, but it was meant to help me. I realised that my biggest fear was not actually about losing my career or my husband. I feared losing myself. It was with that awareness that I started to pull myself out of that quicksand, fast. Then I got better and better and I directed all my efforts to staying positive and staying strong".

Priscelia Chan then looked towards creative means to help manage her stress levels. For one, she found making floral arrangements therapeutic. She also went behind the camera as she scripted and directed the short film Soul Connection (2019). Another avenue was teaching acting to children and adults.

"I realised you must really try to distract yourself, and find something you can do within your limits. I found my recovery speeding up quite fast from my flower therapy… I directed my energy to something that was besides my condition."

But one hurdle Priscelia Chan had to jump through before going back in front of the cameras was to find makeup that was agreeable with her skin.  When asked in 2019 about the kinds of makeup she can't wear, she said, "I think foundation. And lipstick. But I’m also not sure exactly why and what. People have been telling me to go for patch tests… but… there are so many ingredients in make-up! And I’ve done my fair share of research. The only way to do a make-up trial is on my face."

Priscelia Chan has since added new acting credits under her belt. A notable example was the 2023 film Don't Go Home Tonight. Directed by Kelvin Sng, the movie had no script, a first for Priscelia Chan, and depended on the character improvisation surrounding a single premise. She was game to try and later described the experience as a "fun and interesting manner of filming a movie."

Speaking of acting, some readers might know that Priscelia Chan is actually married to former actor Alan Tern. The couple met when they were both budding actors and quickly became good friends. She was initially reluctant to get into a relationship with him after he had expressed romantic feelings for her, as she didn't want to ruin the friendship. The couple eventually got together and signed the marriage papers in 2007.

Priscelia Chan also credited Alan Tern as being the rock that helped her through her battle with eczema. "My source of strength was really my husband and my family."

The real-life couple has acted opposite each other a couple of times - first, in Springs of Life (2002), and later, in Priceless Wonder (2010) and A Song to Remember (2011).

Yet, when Priscelia Chan was asked if she would like to act alongside Alan Tern again, she straight-up said no.

"No. I’m sorry but I never liked acting with my husband. We acted as girlfriend-boyfriend before we got married and as a married couple after we got married. And I realised the stark difference. I think acting as a boy-girl friend, brothers and sisters, or friends are fine.

But I think it was when we were filming A Song to Remember and he played a pretty bad character who was a lousy husband. And for once I felt, “Wow, I can’t talk to him on set” 'cos it distracts me and I felt weird. It was like I was looking at the same face but he was a man from a different era.

I had to stop talking to him on set so I could look at him like he’s not Alan Tern. I mean, I see his face 24/7 and I know all his quirks.

Then I went to ask other actresses who told me that they don’t like acting with their husbands too. That means I’m normal!"

At the end of February 2023, Priscelia Chan reunited with her castmates from The Queen (2016), namely Jesseca Liu, Apple Hong, Michelle Chia and Jayley Woo. The drama revolved around a secret squad of masked female avengers. It was also where the group got close. The gathering was meant to pay a visit to new mother Jayley Woo and welcome her one-month-old daughter, Jan Tan, to the group.

As we said in the introduction, Priscelia Chan is known for her bubbly, positive demeanour. The bright side she chooses to embody, however, is a deliberate choice she made after her mother passed in 2005. Prior to that, she self-described herself as being "super meticulous and very Singaporean" in wanting to achieve certain goals by a set age. The loss of her mother made her realise that nothing in life ever really goes your way.

"Life is so short and it’s never the way you want it to be, so we just have to choose happiness. When you decide to be happy, you choose to be more observant. You look at the genuine smiles from your friends; a nice cup of coffee; even nice, rainy weather. If you’re grateful for the little things, you realise it’s easy to be happy."

"When you start to compare: ‘She wears more beautiful clothes than me. She won more awards than me. She’s taller than me. She’s got bigger boobs than me’… When you become envious easily, you’ll lose yourself. If you have all these trapped feelings inside, people can feel it. And do you realise that people avoid negative people? The funniest thing is you think people don’t know, but it’s so obvious."

"With maturity, you grow stronger and more confident. And the beautiful thing is that you don’t even know it has happened. Having obstacles along the way is not a bad thing — it grooms you. You blossom into a more resilient flower with more character, with more stories to tell."