Captivating Carmen

Modelling is not what I planned to do when I was studying,” Carmen who has been modelling for 15 years, says. “I don’t think anyone can decide to be a model. You just kind of go into it and realise that you like it. Even after five years of modelling at that time, I didn’t know I was going to model for another 10 years. It just went on.
“I started acting five years ago. In the first two years of acting, I was just getting my footing right. But now, I know that I enjoy it. I want to do both acting and modelling for as long as I can. Variety is the spice of life,” she adds.
Carmen shares that both acting and modelling are very different. “Probably the only similarity is that both are in front of the camera. In modelling, you are conscious that you will always be posing for the camera. But when you are acting, you have to throw all that away. You are aware of the camera being there but it’s almost that it is not there.”
For the last three years, Carmen has given priority to acting. She has acted in different languages – Chinese, Malay, English and Tagalog. “Films of different languages have different styles and different environments, so there’s a lot of adjustment but it’s quite exciting and refreshing. It’s quite nice when I jump from a Chinese-Eng musical to a English-Malay TV series. It keeps you more on your toes.”
Two years ago, Carmen did a TV series, Kahit Isang Saglit (A Time For Us), which was a co-production between Malaysia and the Philippines. “It has opened new doors for me to the Philippine market. It was also nominated for the Emmy Award and I went to New York just two months ago. That was quite an achievement as it was the first time a telenovella from the Philippines and Malaysia was nominated,” she says.
“My next plan is to set up base in the Philippines. I like to spend more time there, so when I’m not shooting, I’ll be studying Tagalog.”