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Edmund Lee


48 HOURS: I didn't realise you are only 25 until I researched this interview. It seems to me that you've been around forever.
JANICE MAN: That's because I started so early. I signed with my first agency at the age of 14 and I started modelling at 15. After five years at that model agency, I signed with Leon Lai Ming's management company. I've just signed with my third company [Sun Entertainment Culture]. I am very experienced now that I've been working in showbiz for eight or nine years.
When you signed with Lai, he famously declared that you were going to be a "model-artist", meaning you'd devote equal attention to modelling and acting. What's your direction now?
I'm concentrating on movie acting from now on. It's a new beginning for me and this is the direction I want to take. I hope I'll get to play a greater variety of characters and show the audience what I'm capable of. I aim to make three or four films a year.
It must be said that many of the film characters you've played are anything but conventional.
They tend to be quite mysterious.
Do you have a thing for moody characters?
Not really, though I know I'm still learning as an actress. It's my aim to improve my acting skills. As for my acting choices, I'm a greedy person. I want to play very tough girls in action movies, which I've just accomplished in [upcoming film] Helios. I'd also like to take on more challenging roles in the future, such as someone who is emotionally disturbed or physically immobile. That's because I very much enjoy the preparation process for each character.
How about your modelling career?
For now, I'm just going to enjoy myself when I pose for magazine cover shoots before, let's say, a film release. I love to do photo shoots, and that is how I started, so I'm not going to give that up altogether.
You began your career with the first wave of young local models that would eventually be coined the pseudo-model phenomenon. How do you feel about your start when you look back today?
In the early days, people remembered me from my modelling photos for print media. Combined with the fact that I was very young then, I was labelled a "leng mo" [pseudo-model], which really just means "young model" in Cantonese. It wasn't a derogatory term at the time. People wouldn't roll their eyes when they heard the word — all it meant was "young models for print media". I modelled for print because I'm not tall enough to become a catwalk model, but the nature of this trend soon deteriorated to include those who are scantily clad.
… purely to grab attention.
Exactly. It became a derogatory term that's applied back on us [the proper models]. We weren't like that at all when we started. I haven't even taken one swimsuit photo as a model. But it doesn't bother me too much to be called a pseudo-model, because people know what kind of a person Janice Man is, what her jobs are like and what sort of career direction she's taking. I've always been very clear about all these, so I'm not too sad about the inaccurate labelling.
You're often asked by the press to comment on news of your contemporary Angelababy [Yeung Wing], and I notice your answers are always indifferent. Are you fed up with those questions?
That's not it; it's just that I'm thoroughly used to them by now. I believe that competition exists in every profession and showbiz is no exception. I guess people can see that the two of us have similar career paths, and that we started during the same period. She used to be a very good friend of mine — but since we've both been busy, we haven't really kept in touch with each other. That said, I believe that anything could happen in this business; we may well have a chance to work together again one day. That's why I don't care too much about what the others say.
 


The Inquisition: Janice Man talks about being labelled a 'leng mo'

Magazines

48 Hours

The actress and model talks about her past, her future, and why she doesn’t mind being labelled a leng mo


The actress and model talks about her past, her future, and why she doesn’t mind being labelled a leng mo.
