Things I would tell my younger self: Actor Qi Yuwu
Public figures and personalities share the lessons they’ve picked up in life in CNA Lifestyle’s Things I Would Tell My Younger Self series. In this edition, Singapore-based actor Qi Yuwu talks about living fearlessly, why acting is “self-torture” and the one thing he might do differently as a first-time dad.
Qi Yuwu doesn't think of regrets as bad. (Photos: CNA, Star Search)
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Qi Yuwu has had lots of time to think about what he might theoretically tell his younger self, because he’s spent many months filming for a new drama in which he plays a man who travels back in time and meets his past self.
Mandarin series Once Upon A New Year’s Eve, which premieres on television on Thursday (Jan 18) and is also available on mewatch, stars Yuwu as a self-centred miser and widower estranged from his children. When he meets a strange man claiming to be from the future – played by Zhang Ze Tong – he receives the opportunity to revisit the past.
Yes, it’s all very Ebenezer Scrooge, but the New Year’s Eve of the title refers to Chinese New Year instead of a Dickensian year-end season. The series also stars Jeremy Chan, He Yingying and Brian Ng.
Yuwu’s character accepts the chance to make amends to his late wife – played by Jesseca Liu – and solve the mystery of a broken friendship, but also has run-ins with his past self.
Doesn’t that pose problems for the space-time continuum? Erm, guess we’ll have to watch the show to find out.
“If I really could travel through time, there are too many periods I would want to visit,” mused Yuwu, paralysed by the hypothetical possibility of meeting anyone in history, even his teenage self.
The 47-year-old was born and grew up in Guangzhou, China, where his family still lives. He moved to Singapore in his early 20s after winning the China round of Star Search Singapore in 1999, picking up a Mr Personality award while he was at it. Rising steadily to leading man status, he’s earned two Best Actor gongs and an All-Time Favourite Artiste trophy at the Star Awards over the years.
His first breakout TV roles included those in 2000’s Master Swordsman Lu Xiaofeng and 2001’s My Genie alongside Fiona Xie; while on the big screen, he began taking on leading roles with 2007’s 881 and 2008’s 12 Lotus.
Over the years, he’s become known for his deft portrayals of intense emotions with masterful subtlety – a tensed jaw here, a twitch of the eye there. In real life, the art and cooking enthusiast, who’s famously married to actress Joanne Peh, is perfectly okay with people thinking he’s stiff and boring.
On the question of whether he reckons he could be more romantic, for example, the father of two simply shrugged, “I think you can’t change who you are.”
That’s why he doesn’t believe in fantasising about how dropping any advice or pearls of wisdom on your own younger self would be beneficial in any way.
“I don’t think I would say much to my younger self,” he mused (never mind the fact that he doesn’t typically say much to anyone anyway – he’s really more of the strong silent type).
Instead, he said, with a faraway look in his eye: “I might just quietly observe myself and allow myself to experience things over again, whether it’s my school days or the period in which I’d just moved to Singapore. I think that experiencing those feelings and emotions would be enough for me.”
While the Yuwu we know now has a quiet presence and is very thoughtful and soft-spoken, teenage Yuwu was rather different, he revealed.
“My course of study was physical education, so I was very active. Even my parents thought I was a rule breaker, and would often get carried away doing naughty things. For example, if I was watching a basketball game on TV at home, I’d shout so loudly that all the neighbours could hear. It was crazy.”
Trust us when we say our eyes nearly bugged out of our heads when we heard this story, delivered in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
But “if I went back in time and saw myself doing that, I wouldn’t tell myself not to,” he said. “I would enjoy the fact that I once lived that life.”
He continued: “I feel everything happens as it’s meant to. Why do things happen at a certain point in time? Maybe it’s to help us learn a lesson. I think the most important thing in life is to experience things; it’s not about what or how much you know. I might know something but I’d have to go through it, even muddle through it, in order to really understand what that feeling is. The feeling is the most precious thing.”
5 THINGS QI YUWU WOULD TELL HIS YOUNGER SELF
- Welcome every experience without overthinking. Life is all about change. Be willing to let go. Live freely. When I was in my teens, I knew a lot of things, in theory. But it was necessary for me to experience falling down and getting hurt in order to truly understand the meaning of each one. Often, life is about what we experience, and not about following what the brain dictates.
- I’d tell the Yuwu who was just starting out in his acting career: It doesn’t matter that you’re new – if you’re destined to make your mark, you’ll have a good career. But, this road won’t be easy because acting is a path of self-torture. (Laughs)
- The relationship advice I’d give my younger self is: Allow yourself to experience things. You’ll feel lots of different emotions at different points in time. It all changes. So, let go and don’t be afraid. There’s no point in being afraid.
- Let bygones be bygones. Some regrets are destined to be regrets. Because of these regrets, you come to understand what it is you should cherish. So, regrets in themselves are not bad things.
- I’d tell the Yuwu who was about to become a first-time dad: Don’t buy such an expensive cot. (Laughs) It’s a waste of money. You’re excited and want to give your kid the best, the nicest-looking – and I think that’s a beautiful feeling – but to the kid, there’s no difference. They’ll just pee and poop all over it! Still, I think I would do it all over again.
Feelings and how they are expressed are, after all, what he deals in as an actor; and the more life experiences he collects as he approaches middle age, the better he can hone his craft.
“Acting is a path of self-torture,” he quipped, with a laugh. “You have to portray many human emotions”, including but not limited to extreme joy, sorrow, pain, destitution and hope, and that’s just in Once Upon A New Year’s Eve alone.
But, there’s an upside. “It helps you understand things in your own life, and makes you a better person – a better son, a better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better actor.”
If you have regrets, they serve to illuminate the things in life that you should not take for granted, he asserted.
But he, personally, doesn’t have any.
“I think I’m quite happy now, so I don’t have regrets. I think: Take things lightly. You might turn out to be right or wrong, but you always gain something good out of everything.”
Once Upon A New Year’s Eve premieres Jan 18 on Channel 8 at 9pm. Also available on mewatch.
