Gallen Lo, Ali Lee at “The Conspirators” Costume Fitting
In Gallen Lo‘s (羅嘉良) TVB comeback drama The Conspirators <與諜同謀>, he is paired with rising actress Ali Lee (李佳芯). Receiving her big break in her acting career, Ali spoke about her excitement in working with Gallen.
It has been seven years since Gallen’s last drama, Born Rich <富貴門>. Gallen joked that he nearly got lost when driving to TVB City. On his reasons for returning to TVB, Gallen explained that he found the role he was playing very fascinating and that it was TVB executive, Wong Wai Sing (黃偉昇), who invited him to star in the series. Gallen said, “I haven’t been back for so long…there are so many people I now don’t know. But everyone has been very nice to me.” Gallen was however reluctant to divulge his pay for the drama, “I’m not going to talk about it…I’ve never liked talking about figures.”
In The Conspirators, Gallen will be working with many newcomers, including Ali, Fred Cheng (鄭俊弘) and a few others. Having already met them and interacted with them, Gallen praised the newcomers for their vibrant personalities, “I remember being a newcomer once myself.” Gallen said he will stay in Hong Kong for about two and a half months for filming, before returning to Beijing in April for his daughter’s birthday.
Ali Gets Her Big Break
At TVB for over three years, Ali feels very lucky to have the opportunity to play the female lead role in The Conspirators. She mused, “From initially just having a non-speaking role in a few scenes, to slowly getting roles with one or two lines, to playing the supporting character, to finally playing the lead role, and having only been at TVB for three years…I feel very lucky. Maybe I managed to impress when I was playing roles like the mistress or the homewrecker!”
Ali was then asked about rumors that she was only given the lead role due to Tavia Yeung‘s (楊怡) speculated departure from TVB. Not directly addressing the issue, Ali said diplomatically, “This role has been the best Christmas and New Year’s gift to me.” On whether she minded being regarded as a backup plan, Ali expressed, “I don’t have high expectations – I’m just glad to play this role. Most importantly, the role seems fun to play and will give me room to express my acting abilities. Everyone will have a different performance style, and I will play the role with my own style.”
In the drama, Ali will not only be playing the mother of a five-year-old boy but also the personal assistant to Gallen’s character. On whether working with Gallen gave her pressure, Ali laughed and said, “Of course I get nervous but I will try to think of him singing [to distract myself].”
On whether she had romantic scenes with Gallen, Ali expressed, “Only half the script has been out so far, so I have no idea what the relationship between the two characters is.” Would Ali request for romantic scenes to be added to the script? Ali exclaimed in mock protest, “There’s no need me for to be so pro-active! If it happens, it will happen.”
This article is written by Jingles for JayneStars.com.
lol, Fred isn’t a newbie
I hope it’ll be better than Born Rich – stellar cast but draggy.
Another May-December pairing oh no.
Feel bad for Gallen. Nobody on his level.
@anon Exactly. And not only that, Fred actually plays Gallen’s long-lost son in the series and Jacqueline is his step-daughter. Ali’s character has a son too (though at least hers is a little kid) and it’s assumed that she will be Gallen’s love interest, though in the actual interview, Ali said that only half the script is available and so far, their relationship remains purely platonic.
While I’m grateful that they didn’t cast Grace or Sisley in the female lead role, still not too happy about them casting a newbie period. And I’m disappointed that the main cast aside from Gallen is quite weak (though they did cram tons of veteran supporting actors in the series to balance things out, but could be similar to what they did with COD where all those veterans were wasted due to the horrible performances from majority of the leads). You would think that after all the effort it took to get Gallen to return – plus the fact that he IS TVB’s first 3 time TV King winner – they would do a better job with the casting. I guess since TVB has “bigger fish to fry” come April with The Shell Game remake announced last week, Gallen’s series pales in comparisons…..
@llwy12 what? They are having a shell game remake? Who is taking on Patrick’s role? I wonder if they would change the script. The rape scene and eye gpuging always gave me the creeps.
@elizabeth Starring Patrick Tse, Charmaine, Kenneth Ma, Monica Chan, etc. Producer is Wong Jing though.
@tiffany thanks for replying. i think wong jing may have been a part of the original version when he first started out at tvb. I quite liked the original one so im glad patrick is back but i think it may be a sequel rather than a remake since he is too old for law sei hoi who was 40. I am ok with the cast as long as wong jing does not flood the screen with his dubbed botox-fillef starlets, cheap and ugly fashion like what he did to that master of destiny series.
@elizabeth Most likely Wong Jing WILL fill the series with his own starlets, as he had said in the same article that he is responsible for recruiting half the artists while TVB will be recruiting the other half. Patrick Tse was Wong Jing’s recruit and Charmaine, Kenneth, and Monica were of course from the TVB side. Also, just like Master of Destiny, this production will be considered an ‘outsourced’ co-production, which means that Wong Jing will be overseeing the production off-site (most likely filming in Mainland) and TVB pretty much has no involvement except to provide the artists. Personally, not looking forward to this, as Wong Jing has definitely lost his touch in recent years and I have no confidence whatsoever that he is going to make a decent series.
@llwy12 Oh boy! My main problem with modern chinese dramas is that sarft requires all evil people to be punished or repenting at the end, which ruins many possible ending which can dark, ambigious yet entertaining if the bad guys does win.
Why is tvb doing this? MOD had horrible reviews from both mainland china and hk! I would rather they do a collaboration with a proper mainland chinese company and make something that looks great, but even that, i have mixed feelings about.
@elizabeth Most likely all that will happen, as no doubt that Wong Jing will be rewriting the script to ‘fit’ Mainland censors (just like he did with Vegas to Macau) – and don’t be surprised if there is no actual ‘gambling’ in the series whatsoever, since gambling is also ‘not allowed’.
Well, according to Wong Jing, MOD was ‘well-received’ and all those who criticized the series have no taste (his words, not mine) – besides, Wong Jing and TVB (Shaw Brothers) are still on their ‘high’ from the billions of dollars that From Vegas to Macau brought in, so it makes sense that they want to keep the momentum going. Who cares what us audiences think? If TVB cared about its audiences, they wouldn’t be churning out crap over and over again.
While I don’t like the idea of Wong Jing and TVB remaking The Shell Game, I’m not as pissed over it, since I wasn’t too ‘into’ that series anyway – plus Wong Jing wrote the script for that series and his dad produced it, so I guess he has the right to ‘butcher’ it if it he wants. I’m more concerned with him and TVB getting their hands on other popular classics and completely ruining those….
@elizabeth Yes, Wong Jing is collaborating with TVB again this year to remake his dad Wong Tin Lam’s 1980 gambling-themed classic The Shell Game (which Wong Jing actually wrote the script for back then). As for who will be taking on Patrick’s role – um, actually, Wong Jing already invited Patrick Tse back to reprise his role and Patrick already accepted. Charmaine Sheh and Kenneth Ma will be starring in the series alongside Patrick. They haven’t released the full details of the series yet and so far, no word as to whether Liza Wang will be returning to reprise her role – Wong Jing did say though that the series is going to be a ‘modern’ version of The Shell Game, as he feels that the pre-modern era that the original series was set in is not as popular with audiences these days. Filming is scheduled to start in April. Monica Chan is also returning to film a series for TVB in April – she didn’t reveal which series she was filming but rumor has it that she will be filming this series.
Since it’s an updated version of the series, no clue how ‘faithful’ they will be to the original script – but since Wong Jing wrote the script originally and he’s the one ‘remaking’ the series, I guess he can take whatever liberties he wants to take with it. And don’t forget that this is Wong Jing we’re talking about, so we already know there will be gratuitous sex and violence (to the extent that is allowed on television that is) as well as gimmicks galore.
Welcome back! !!!
So this would mean Ali gets to be female lead at least twice this year.
@lileric
Yes but there should be a separation of many month for each to be broadcasted since one has already been filmed. Should be fine as both series are led very good actors.
Good to Gallen Is back! Not sure if I like Ali tho .