Is Natalie Tong Leaving TVB?
Rumors were rampant that Natalie Tong (唐詩詠), who has been with TVB for nearly 20 years, will be leaving once her contract expires this month. When Natalie allegedly indicated her intentions to leave, TVB hoped she would merely transition to the station’s sister company Shaw Brothers. However, Natalie is firm on pursuing her next goal.
An insider recently confirmed that the 40-year-old actress will be shifting her career to stage plays and will even have the chance to serve as screenwriter. The shift in career might not be a sudden move after all, as theater has always been Natalie’s true passion.
Allegedly, Natalie has been working on a script that is based on her own life. The play focuses on a couple’s divorce and how it affects the emotions of their young daughter, who grows up feeling lonely and unable to reconcile her feelings.
Natalie once admitted that her parents’ divorce caused her to not know how to get along with others, as she was an only child and only knew to keep things to herself. When she grew up, her choice of career forced her to open up and communicate with others. She recalled, “I found out that the unsettled feelings from my childhood were never resolved. Now, I have the courage to talk about it. I hope I can encourage others to tell their own stories. It’s not about whether other people understand you, it’s about how well you understand yourself.”
At the beginning of her acting career, Natalie often portrayed younger sister characters. Through hard work, Natalie slowly, but steadily became a leading actress. Finally, she clinched her first Best Actress award in 2017 for My Unfair Lady <不懂撒嬌的女人>, and TVB has been heavily promoting her since.
Friends Show Support
Forming many lasting friendships from her time at TVB, Natalie’s good friends Priscilla Wong (黃翠如) and Kenneth Ma (馬國明) have expressed their support. Priscilla expressed, “If she really is going to participate in stage plays in the future, I will definitely support her! I will support her no matter what she does. I don’t know whether she will be renewing her contract with TVB or not, but I will support her in whatever she chooses to do. I am quite biased. In my eyes, all her projects are great!” Kenneth also voiced his support, “No matter what she chooses, I will support her choices and decisions.”
Source: On.cc
This article is written by Huynh for JayneStars.com.
Buh-bye. Won’t miss seeing her. Her acting isn’t good and she has been exactly the same for 20 years. No improvement whatsoever. Maybe she’ll do better on stage with live theater or behind the scenes. Sometimes it’s good to change things up a bit to give new perspective and who knows, maybe she will come back on screen with a breakthrough in her acting. Change is hard.
Change is unsettling. But it could be a good thing. 20yrs of doing the same thing, it’s time to re-evaluate what you want to do in life if what you’ve been doing is no longer working for you and you are not evolving. Good move on her part.
I know I’m in the minority in this, but she has changed my mind about her acting skills ever since Short End of the Stick. I think she can be super adorable and does better in comedy than all these serious roles they give her. Ideally actresses should be able to immerse into any role and a true talented actress can win over the audience with any and every role. Unfortunately she is not talented, but she is a good actress in one genre of drama. So I do wish her the best of luck and hope she finds great and better opportunities in the future.
I’m probably in the minority as well, but I definitely prefer her over many other actresses at TVB. Her biggest problem, though, is how inconsistent her performances are. I still remember how great she was in Bullet Brain (horrible series, I know) and I quite liked her in A Fistful of Stances, but was she just bad in some of her other series (especially her ancient ones). Hopefully this break will be good to her.
I don’t know if she just always plays the same character in every show or she interprets the role the same every time. I never see her as her character. I always just see her as Natalie Tong (if that makes any sense). I feel her and Mandy Wong have similar problems. They never bring anything unique to the table.
i am totally with you on this! Somehow, both of them are reserved in immersing in their roles. You see only Natalie and Mandy in every role.
Yes, you right, Mandy & Natalie have the same problem.
Think Natalie was better than Mandy when they first started. At least I felt there was potential in Natalie when she was taking on supporting roles while Mandy has been Mandy all the time. They are still better than some of the newer actresses that the TV station is trying so hard to promote but their presence somehow do not bring excitement to the drama. And it does not help that the drama quality has been nosediving in recent years.
Natalie didn’t deserve her best actress award as Cherry,
It should have gone to Jessica Suen for Miss Mo
she won’t be missed at least for me but i am surprised b/c i didn’t see this coming.