McDull star Choi Hon-yick shot to stardom last year, but he's no overnight success
Babyjohn Choi Hon-yick shot to stardom last year, but he's no overnight success.
Choi Hon-yick made his acting debut as the character Baby John in the musical West Side Story at school, he was so taken by the role that he decided to keep the name for himself. "Yes, the name is a bit cute," admits Babyjohn Choi, now 27, when we meet to chat about his voicing part for the new animation McDull: Me & My Mum. "And what happens when I turn 40? It's true that the muscular men among our crew sometimes call me Baby. I'm like, 'Huh? You can call me John'."
A virtual unknown before his leading role in last year's sleeper hit The Way We Dance, Choi has exploded onto the scene in an eventful year that saw him win the best new performer prize at both the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Hong Kong Directors Guild Awards. But he is no overnight success, and this acclaim has been in the making for more than a decade.
It all happened so quickly, I still haven't worked out how I've changed as a person
Choi had always wanted to be in the movies, but he found it difficult to get started. "When I graduated from Form Five and looked to study drama abroad, I found that I had to enrol myself in the junior year again to join the programme. Then, when I decided to apply to study at the Academy for Performing Arts (APA), the application period had already passed," he says.
For a less fanatical dreamer, that would probably have been the end of it. But instead of giving up, Choi took a year off school to wait for the next round of applications. During this time, he learned to play the guitar and drums, played the piano for ballet classes, and became a piano teacher.
After finally entering the APA, he became the top performer at its 2004 summer school. This led to the 17-year-old actor playing the lead in the Academy's version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
"Joseph had a lot of setbacks in his life, but always managed to see the bright side of things. I didn't understand this until I played the part. Rather than sitting around feeling sad, I now know how to cheer myself up," Choi said in a 2004 Post interview. "It's more likely that people will succeed after hard work, although not everyone is lucky enough to achieve what he or she wants."