The Star - Tuesday January 9, 2007.

By ZACK YUSOF

Sometimes, a choice career opportunity will come around out of the blue that simply has to be grabbed with both hands. In up-and-coming starlet Chermaine Poo’s case, that choice career opening turned out to be in the entertainment field.

A year ago, the petite KL-ite was enjoying a successful career as a chartered accountant specialising in corporate finance for one of the largest investment banks in the country.

Although she had always been interested in the entertainment industry, acting in particular, her career path seemed destined for the world of business rather than the performing arts.

Despite her demanding work commitments, acting remained a passion while modelling gigs and the odd TV commercial kept her connected to the fashion and advertising industries. Then interesting job offers started coming in over the past year that convinced her to take on a radical career rethink.

Back in 2005, Chermaine got her first taste of what it might be like to be a celebrity when she ended up as runner-up in the Miss Malaysia Universe pageant. She also won three subsidiary titles that year. Despite her success in the competition, life went on us usual.

“My friends and family kept me grounded and I was still working at the time so I did not take up that many of the opportunities that came about,” explained the 27-year-old during a recent interview in Kuala Lumpur.
“I was working long hours doing corporate funds so my priorities were still on that until recently when I started doing extra things. I was approached to do covers for magazines, interviews and movies.”

The lure of the stage and screen eventually became irresistible. Walking away from her secure and well-paid job, Chermaine now finds herself en route to becoming an actress, with several decent roles under her belt.
“Acting was something I was always passionate about. Before getting into acting, I was mainly doing photo shoots and TV commercials and getting into hosting and MC jobs.

“I loved watching movies and was always intrigued as to how filmmakers and actors went about their jobs.”
To learn more about her craft, Chermaine auditioned for Actor’s Studio co-founder and director Joe Hasham’s advanced acting class.

“That was quite an experience in itself as you had to audition in order to get accepted for the class. Joe made me cry in front of the whole class so I thought of something really sad and luckily I got accepted.

“I started attending classes and it was a very different experience. There are so many things one has to go through in order to act well. For me, acting was very therapeutic.

“Normally, I’m not a very open person. I don’t go around showing my feelings. So when I act, I find that it’s a good way for me to express myself.”

The training has paid off for the lass. Last November, she made her theatre debut in Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (Female Version) at The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre alongside Samantha Schubert, Bernie Chan, Sarah Shahrum and Elaine Daly.

“I was kind of thrown into the deep end as we only had limited rehearsal time, but everyone in the cast was great and really patient with me. I think I gave my best and given more time, it could have been better.
“It was different doing theatre and working in front of an audience compared to anything that I have done before,” said Chermaine.

Chermaine has also managed to score roles in a couple of local productions, namely Anwardi Datuk Jamil’s Orange for Mama and Dain Iskandar Said’s Dukun.

In Dukun, which is based on the infamous Mona Fandey case, Chermaine plays a lawyer in the pivotal courtroom scene.

In the heart-warming family drama Orange for Mama, she tackles the lead character Soo. She is the shy, middle child of a rich family who falls in love for the first time. But the icing on the cake of her movie career would be her cameo appearance in Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee’s latest production, the WWII espionage thriller Lust, Caution, alongside established Asian names like Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Joan Chen and Taiwanese singer Wang Lee Hom.

“After shooting Dukun, I did a travel show about Pulau Tioman for one of the local TV stations and it was then that I got a call from Ang Lee’s assistant director for Lust, Caution.

“He asked me to meet him so I rushed back. It was such a great opportunity,” said Chermaine with remarkable understatement. “They had already auditioned a couple of rounds and although it was a shot in the dark I would get to meet Ang Lee, so I auditioned. After all, I had nothing to lose and to my surprise I got the part.”

Filming in Ipoh, Chermaine got her chance to see a typical big Hollywood production machine in full flow. Playing a “damsel in distress”, she got to shoot her scene with Lee Hom.

“Working on the film was an amazing and new experience to me. They were so strict on everything and everything was done on such a huge scale. They even had the makeup, props and wardrobe people flown in from overseas.

“Ang Lee turned out to be such a nice, humble man. When I turned up on the set to shoot my part, there were a lot of screaming fans around because I was fortunate to shoot my part with Lee Hom. The fans were screaming so much that I felt like Zhang Ziyi (laughs)”.

Many have asked Chermaine about her career choice.

“Well, I can always be a chartered accountant for the rest of my life but I can’t get into this line of work when I’m 50. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Wardrobe: courtesy of Gallo; jewellery: courtesy of Korloff at Starhill, Kuala Lumpur; make-up artist: Angeline Tong; hairstylist: Audrey for FACE & TOUCH.