The one thing to avoid asking Tan Kheng Hua is where she is based. The short answer is, right now, Singapore. The long answer is that it doesn’t matter. “It’s funny. When I spent all those years in LA and Vancouver, people would ask where I’m from, but not where I’m based. It’s only here in Singapore that people ask me where I’m based. I’m a creative and an actor. I go where good work takes me,” the actress says from across the table at a cafe in Joo Chiat.
The small-boned 62-year-old lives in the area and cycled to our meeting wearing a white blouse and denim shorts. She could pass for that of a woman half her age from behind.
An actress whose career has spanned TV, theatre, film, and animation, Tan is best known for her supporting roles in the Hollywood movie Crazy Rich Asians, American martial arts TV series Kung Fu, and American prime-time medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Most recently, she voice acted in the American animated fantasy film The Tiger’s Apprentice alongside Michelle Yeoh and Henry Golding, as well as The Violinist, an animated historical epic film currently in production. In addition, she appeared in the local mockumentary Sandbox, which premiered at the Singapore International Film Festival last month.
Lesser known is that Tan is also an experienced producer. Among the productions she has produced are Tropicana The Musical; Dim Sum Dollies shows; infotainment programmes for Asian Food Channel, now known as Asian Food Network; small shows for The Arts House and The Esplanade; and festivals such as The 20-Something Theatre Festival commissioned by the National Arts Council of Singapore.
“The people that need to know that I produce, know. The public might not know, but I think it’s why I have opportunities to produce all the time,” she says. The last show she produced was a musical for Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s 180th anniversary, which took place last year.
As someone who knows her own mind, Tan doesn’t take long to decide on jobs. “If it’s a yes in my head, it’s very quick and very loud. Most of the time, I know very well what I don’t want to do. Chances are if I haven’t done something, I don’t want to do it,” she makes plain.
It is perhaps why she, among other things, shops like a man. “I live in denim shorts. I buy something in two colours and call it a day.”
It is also important to her who is involved in a project. Prospective co-stars should be on the same page: “Are they going to work hard with me? Are we going to bring out the best in each other?”
As it stands, she sees herself continuing to act until the very end. “I’m healthy now, but I’m getting older. I don’t see my love for acting diminishing in any way. If anything, it will only continue to grow deeper and stronger. But let’s say something happens to me physically and I’m no longer able to act, I’d be very happy doing voice acting or producing until I can’t anymore.”
ANOTHER 20 YEARS
A straight-shooting sexagenarian, Tan doesn’t shy away from the fact that she’s “living in the last season of life”. It might be a morbid subject, but since she has broached it, it would be remiss of me not to ask about her views on the universal experience that is death.
Mortality makes her contemplate peace a lot, she replies. “I want to die as happy as I can be. I want to die with people who love me around me. And when you know how you want to die, you know how you want to live. I think about dying all the time and not in an anxious way.”
It is why she has taken to a freewheeling lifestyle. She’s the type to ask a friend out for coffee spontaneously and they congregate within 10 minutes because many of her pals also live in the East. “We discuss ideas. The ideas might not go anywhere, but it doesn’t matter. As I get older, I just want more of this freedom. I’ve never felt more creative than I do now. When you don’t have anything to prove to anybody, you create just like a child, not for any tangible benefit or for the ego.”
Her insouciance is due in part to coming to terms with past missteps, she clarifies. “I’ve suffered the consequences of my mistakes and said to myself, ‘I’m never going to do that again,’ and fully committed to it. At this point of my life, I am so thankful for a handful of people who love and know me. I don’t ask for more. I have more than I deserve.”
Not that Tan expects to meet her maker anytime soon. Her 89-year-old mother is still full of spit and vinegar, and even still drives. “Chances are I’ve got another 20 years, which means I’ve got another 20 years to serve the people I love. I think it’s wonderful. It makes me wake up in the morning and go, ‘Let’s go’!”
Tan has spoken publicly about her deep bond with her actress-daughter Lim Shi-An, whom she shares with exhusband and fellow actor Lim Yu-Beng, but she cleaves to her mother as well. They spend a lot of time together these days. “I want to grow old with my mum. She is a big priority in my life now. I’m one of the people she depends on, and I cannot overestimate how privileged a position it is. If your parent depends on you, it means you’ve done something right.”
When she isn’t acting or spending time with family, Tan is high-spirited: she runs, works out at the gym, hikes, dives, and skis. She has always been champing at the bit. “I’m energised. I have no idea why a lot of people are constantly tired. I’m naturally a person who is happy to just be discovering. With me, there is a very short lag between ‘Should I do it?’ and ‘I’m just going to do it’.”
A SINGAPORE CHINESE WOMAN
Few Singaporean actresses have been able to break into Hollywood the way Tan has, so few are as familiar with Asian representation abroad. Her approach to representing a community is simple: she is herself as much as possible off camera.
“For example, I play an Asian American woman in Kung Fu, but on press tours, I’m a Singaporean Chinese woman because I’m myself. Just by talking the way that I do, using the vocabulary that feels true to me, and answering the questions as authentically as possible, they get an idea of what a Singaporean Chinese woman in her late 50s—the age I was then—is like.”
Essentially, she shows, not tells. “I don’t have an answer for questions like, ‘Why do you speak such good English?’ I just tell them factually that English is my first language and the language that I was taught in throughout my education in Singapore. It is the language with which I understand the world and dream in.”
She doesn’t worry about fitting in, and isn’t constrained or inhibited by rules and conventions. “Being at Hollywood parties was fun and exciting, like when the Crazy Rich Asians cast hung with the Black Panther cast. But I’m also the sort that, no matter where I am or who I’m with, when it’s time to go home, I just go, ‘Bye guys, I need to leave because I like to be in bed early’. And that can be as early as 10pm.”
It should be noted that Tan earned every stripe she has received overseas; there hasn’t been a project outside of Singapore she didn’t audition for. That said, she’ll admit that her opportunities tend to come up roses. “I feel like luck had something to do with me getting the role in Crazy Rich Asians. It’s no different from being offered the role of Margaret in Phua Chu Kang. Did I know that I’d play Margaret for the next 11 years of my life? No,” she says. “And I auditioned for the role of Margaret, by the way.”
Even so, she is careful to not overprize her wins. If she sees landing a role as winning, she’ll see not getting a role as losing, which would be counterproductive, she avers.
Tan also ensures that her efforts do not correspond with the scale of a production; she rolls up her sleeves in the same manner for every project she commits to.
“It doesn’t matter how big or small the project is. Whether it goes out to 30 million people or 30 people, I put in the same amount of work. I have the same interest, will, and hardworking attitude for every project. I don’t work harder just because I’m paid more or it’s for a Hollywood project.”
Tan Kheng Hua on giving the same dedication to every project
In her opinion, the rise of social media and the way in which content creation has impacted TV, film, and theatre is something to be embraced. It’s all a part of the cycle of reinvention. “As long as everybody is striving to do good work, I support it whatever the medium. This is not going to be the last time that our viewing patterns are going to change,” she says thoughtfully. “When TV shows started becoming more popular, I didn’t think to myself, ‘Oh, this is going to kill my love for cinema.’ I just thought, ‘Oh, I can also watch this’.”
She is active on social media herself, watching gardening toks before bed and regularly sharing slices of her life on Instagram. “I don’t post on TikTok because I don’t know how to, but on Instagram, I write long paragraphs. I don’’t care about grammar and I make up words, but that’s just how I am in real life. I’m not into curating my feed. I love being unfiltered and writing in a stream of consciousness.
“I challenge myself to post anytime I want and I hardly edit my photos. If you’re looking for pictures of me looking beautiful all the time, look at the magazines instead.”
UNDERSTANDING PURPOSE
Tan has been with her current boyfriend since 2022. Although the relationship isn’t something she openly discusses, the news was picked up by local media outlets after the couple shared snippets of their travels on Instagram in 2023. But she didn’t feel that her privacy had been invaded. “Everything was put out on a public platform, so I have to take some ownership.”
When it comes to love, she has found that change is the only constant after over six deacdes on God’s green earth. We should expect to keep loving and unloving, and being loved and unloved, she sums up.
It is this growth mindset that makes her want to continue learning new skills despite her age, not because of it. Among other things, she wants to learn how to executive produce. “I want to produce more projects and tell more stories for Singapore film and TV. I want to act more and grow old with this big love of mine. I call acting my most successful marriage,” she says, half in jest.
She might also take up screenwriting at some point. “I’ve always felt compelled to do it, though thus far my writing compulsions are mostly on Instagram. I don’t think I have strong enough compulsion to write a screenplay just yet. So, right now, I’m at the stage where I just listen to podcasts about writing screenplays.”
Given that she is widely recognised as a cultural ambassador for Singapore due to her significant contributions to the local arts scene and efforts to promote Singaporean culture and talent internationally, Tan has some advice for younger actors: don’t limit honing your craft to just acting classes and workshops, and live a rich life so you can draw from your experiences.
You should also trust your instincts, something she has found herself doing a lot of over the years. “I wasn’t afraid of doing it when I was young and discovering the world, and I’m even less afraid of it now at 62.”
Learning to regulate your emotions will also be beneficial since we’re in for a ride on this crazy thing called life—and she says this as someone who struggles with anxiety. “I do not glamorise anxiety, but neither do I demonise it. We’re human. We are going to feel anxious. There have been times when I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have a panic attack,” Tan lets on.
“It may sound very Animal Farm-ish, but when I feel anxious, I get to work. I focus on solving the problem, or if it’s something outside my control, on something else rather than sit there and be anxious. I like the idea of learning to self soothe. I also have a three-day rule where I allow myself to feel whatever I feel, and on the fourth day I put it aside and move on. A reality check is always good. Ask yourself if anxiety comes with the purpose you’ve chosen, and if it does, accept it and find a healthy way to deal with it.”
Photography Stefan Khoo
Styling Chia Wei Choong
Hair Sean Ang
Makeup Clarence Lee using Chanel Beauty
Photography assistant Alif
Styling assistant Megan Lim
