Vivien Yeo Leaves TVB
Today it was announced that 35-year-old Vivian Yeo (楊秀惠) has resigned from TVB after 16 years of employment. Her photo and profile have already been taken down from the list of female artistes on TVB’s website.
Vivien started her career by winning the crown at the 2003 Miss Astro Chinese International pageant in Malaysia. After competing in Miss Chinese International 2004, she signed with TVB and was heavily promoted from the start. In her 16 years at TVB, she starred in 39 different dramas. She was cast as the lead actress in Sunshine Heartbeat <赤沙印記@四葉草> and had other memorable roles such as a bulimic patient in A Great Way to Care <仁心解碼>, a flirtatious Lolita in Ghost of Relativity <鬼同你OT>, the cunning wife of Dicky Cheung (張衛健) in The Learning Curve of a Warlord <大帥哥>, and a deaf woman in Brutally Young <十八年後的終極告白>.
Before filming Brutally Young, Vivian spent months learning and practicing sign language. Her hard work paid off as her performance earned praise, especially for her crying scene when she couldn’t speak to the emergency operator after discovering Joel Chan (陳山聰) was severely hurt.
Although nominated many times for Best Supporting Actress at the annual TVB Anniversary Awards, Vivien has never won an award. It is said that Vivien has lost hope due to this, as well as always being cast as the third party in relationships.
After getting married last year, Vivien had intentions of starting a family and allegedly wanted to terminate her contract early and was even willing to pay an early termination fee, but TVB convinced her to stay. With COVID- 19 dampening the economy, TVB has been laying off staff and ultimately decided to allow Vivien to terminate her contract.
Reporters reached out to Vivien, who confirmed her departure and shared that she will miss her friends and colleagues the most. She thanked TVB, but it was time to start a new chapter in her life. “My contract with TVB actually ended awhile ago. I want to thank them for always giving me opportunities. This was my first job in Hong Kong until now.”
The media asked if Vivien was disappointed at not receiving any awards and she replied, “There are many factors that influence whether you receive an award. I’ve always kept a neutral attitude towards this. The most important thing is to be the best version of myself. I’m already very happy with recognition from the audience.”
In regards to the rumors about her paying an early termination fee to end her contract, she expressed that this was not entirely true. “Over the last two years, TVB has always offered me many drama roles and opportunities to fly overseas for travel shows and hosting jobs. Unfortunately, I had to decline many of these jobs as they didn’t work with my schedule. I am on a salaried contract, so I am paid even when there is no work. Over time, it became that I owed TVB for many unfulfilled jobs, but I still wasn’t able to find time to complete them! So I chose to return the money that I had already received for these jobs. It is unfair to say that I had to pay TVB to leave; we still have a good relationship.”
In recent years, she had focused her efforts on her medical beauty business. Entering the Chinese market, her company is growing rapidly.
Vivien originally had many plans, but they have been put on hold or cancelled due to the pandemic, which taught her the importance of living in the present. “My current goal is to take care of my family and my business. Everything can wait until after the pandemic. If there is a great drama script or an interesting project, I am open to acting again.”
Source: HK01
This article is written by Kiki for JayneStars.com.
She married a rich Malay businessman did she not? She’s set for life with or without TVB.
@anon agree!
I always found her to be very pretty and she acted very well. TVB is never short of pretty young actresses however.
I like her, she always come across very elegant and polite. And those legs of hers are to die for!
Always enjoy her acting, too bad she wasn’t promoted more.
But looks like she is doing even better outside of TVB, good for her!
Sad to see Vivien leaves as i think she’s really slowly picking up the ladder to become a leading lady in TVB. Even thought her acting is not top notch, but its gradually getting better and better over the years and i do think she has potential be on top after the previous Fa Dans left. I guess its too late for TVB to keep her. Wishing her all the best
It’s a shame that a lot of artistes have left when they just reached stardom. Vivien could have a lot of opportunities in the future, oh well. I like her acting she will be missed.
Understand Vivian leaving TVB for Family reasons but it’s a shame that once again an actress leaves at her peak after many years of toiling. She ranks in the top 2 or 3 in my book of actresses whose can act well overcoming her cantonese accent..
@jimmyszeto Top 2 or 3? I hope that rank is based against the existing trash actresses left in TVB instead of an overall ranking. Looool!!
@rika
Sorry. Top 2 or 3 Of the crap Unnatural Cantonese speaking actresses I meant. Eliza, Rebecca, Fala, Leanne, Christine etr. Obviously Fala would be the best of this lot
@jimmyszeto
Among the non-Cantonese speaking actresses listed above, Fala Chen was the first one to get rid of her Mandarin accents to concentrate on her acting. She was, of course, the best among the group.
Rebecca Zhu is getting better in both accents and acting. Hope she will be another Fala Chen.
Vivian Yeo is pretty, but she took too long to get rid of her accents to work on her acting. She has got a lot better in recent years, but she is also a lot older now.
Eliza still has some accents. Her acting is pretty bland.
Leanne and Christine just cannot act, though both are very pretty.
i like her more as i watch more of her work. she’s very pretty and acting is decent. she’s not great like the major actresses but her acting is just spot on. she’s very tall, slim and pretty. it’s very unfortunate that tvb didn’t promote her to be a lead.
I guess Brutally Young is going to be her last drama? Sad one by one leave tvb it was Selena who leave first now Vivien. It’s tvb lost for loosing such a good talent. It’s crazy work for that many years and still don’t have any awards for her.
I’ve always wondered why didn’t she leave showbiz as her acting has always been mediocre and she doesn’t have the charisma for audience to remember her presence. IIRC, she had a leading role before in one series with Eric Sun but the drama was such a bore that I stopped watching after a few episodes. I think the only prominent role I can recall her being casted in would be the one with Dicky Cheung in it.
Timing is very important to an artiste. Selina Lee and Vivian Yeo both joined TVB when they had a lot of other pretty actresses, such as Fala Chen, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, Kate Tsui, and Tavia Yeung, etc. It was TVB’s policy to promote an actress in 1 to 2 drama series to test waters. If that actress could not get good ratings in those 2 series, TVB would abandon her. TVB always put the focus on a few actresses and named them “Fadans”, and the rest of the actresses would stay as 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th line artistes.
However, since all the top fadans and more prominent actresses left a few years ago, TVB did not have any reliable actresses to concentrate on casting, their new policy now is to promote many with the hope to keep some in future.
New artistes in TVB now are much luckier. Lots of them get decent roles, or even lead roles to act, such as Kelly Cheung, Crystal Fung, Sisley Choi, etc.
I just want to know HOW she became so much prettier!!!! Like her face slimmed down, skin more whiter , eyes bigger ! I know she has her own beauty company and a product to slim the face ok maybe I need to check her products !
@jujuxoxo
I agree. Vivian has been acting for what seems like well over a decade and she looks younger and slimmer every year. What’s going on?
Vivienne already had successful businesses before getting pregnant. TVB was for exposure for her businesses. Now that she has reached a business growth point and just have birth, isn’t it convenient to just leave TVB?