Roger Kwok Doesn’t Expect to Win TV King This Year
Three-time TV King, Roger Kwok (郭晉安) has starred in all three series of Wong Cho Lam’s (王祖藍) Inbound <老表> franchise. However he does not believe he will have a chance to win TV King this year. “If there is an award [it is unexpected]. Cho Lam said that Inbound is not the type of series to win awards. Comedies require teamwork and it’s hard to stand out.”
In the third installment, Roger stars alongside his At the Threshold of an Era (創世紀) costar, Ada Choi (蔡少芬). Despite it having a 17-year gap since their last collaboration, Roger and Ada still maintained their compatibility and onscreen chemistry. The two are now parents, and often share stories of their family and discuss raising children topics.
Roger said, “Our children are about the same age, but we have different ways of raising them. I am more stable, and she is a little riskier. For example, when she goes on vacation [with her children], she would choose to drive. I wouldn’t dare to do that. I’d rather use public transportation.”
Wife is a Good Mother
Roger is more lax when it comes to parenting and does not feel the pressure when it comes to raising his children, thanks to his wife, Cindy Au (歐倩怡). The 37-year-old mother has been responsible for planning the children’s everyday routine. Not only does Cindy check to ensure the kids are doing all of their homework, she was also the one who thought of sending them to to an international school. Roger said, “I hope the [kids] are happy when they are going to school. Whatever they choose to do with their lives, I will support them. Fortunately, they don’t have a lot of pressure from homework right now. Usually when I get home, they would have already finished their homework.”
Since all three installments of the Inbound franchise has been comedies, Roger suggested that perhaps Wong Cho Lam could produce a more serious drama. With so many ideas and suggestions, would Roger be interested in behind-the-scenes work? Roger laughed and said, “No, it’s too exhausting. When you work in the creative arena, you essentially don’t get to rest at all. Even after you get home, your mind is still on work mode. Wong Cho Lam has a big head, so he has a lot of brain space for creativity.”
Source: On.cc
This article is written by Huynh for JayneStars.com.
Cute kids!!! Love Roger!
Aww, love Roger! His kids are SO cute! I still remember the last time he won TV King when he wore that outfit that had his kids’ pictures on it…so sweet!
I know Roger doesn’t care much about awards and stuff, especially at this stage in his career…he’s essentially still filming for TVB out of loyalty and to help them (and his friends) out, which I definitely admire and love him for, but part of me still wishes that he would be more selective in what he agrees to film. I tried watching a few episodes of Oh My Grad (mostly to support Roger and Ram Tseung and a few other artists I like), but to be honest, the series is boring as hell – the script doesn’t make much sense and it’s obvious Wong Cho Lam didn’t spend as much time refining the script as he did with the previous installments. And I’m sorry, but Roger is essentially “supporting” in this series, as the way his character was written, basically he’s only a background character with the focus being more on Ada’s character and the others such as Babyjohn, Mag Lam, Bob Lam, etc. (and no, this is not my interpretation – WCL actually confirmed this in an interview where he said he is grateful and indebted to Roger for agreeing to participate in this series knowing the way the character was written). WCL obviously has too much on his plate and therefore has not been able to devote the time and energy that he should to these projects anymore, which unfortunately shows big time in this series (sad considering the franchise already overstayed its welcome and the third installment technically shouldn’t have even been made). For everyone’s sake, I’m praying that there won’t be a fourth installment in this franchise….
@llwy12 Agreed. I actually enjoyed the 1st episode and was so excited… but the series totally went downhill. This series isn’t even about education anymore. It’s mostly about a bunch of students acting stupid.
I also couldn’t stand Mag Lam at all. At first she reminds me of Ivana Wong but Ivana was so much cuter and better at acting. Mag just screamed her lines. She was so unbearable. And what is with Eliza? I usually love her so much but she just acts cute in the series. Joyce Chen just over-reacts most of the time. The only watchable one was Babyjohn.
They really should let the Inbound series die. At this point it’s just an embarrassment to the first installment.
@iciel Interestingly, the characters played by Mag, Joyce, and Babyjohn were originally slated for others. Mag’s character was supposed to be played by Ivana Wong, Babyjohn’s was supposed to be Hins Cheung, and Joyce’s character was originally written as a male character to be played by Louis Cheung. Ivana and Hins ended up dropping out of the production due to other work commitments and Louis reduced his participation to cameo only due to his wife Kay becoming pregnant around that time and he wanted to spend time with her, so WCL had to rewrite the script. Due to his other work obligations, he didn’t have time to finish the rewrite before filming commenced so the whole team was essentially working off an ad hoc script that changed as they filmed. This explains why the series feels so disjointed and the plot is all over the place. As for the acting – in a way, I’m giving the newbies the benefit of the doubt due to the circumstances….an experienced actor may not necessarily do well given a badly written, incomplete script, so it’s kind of hard for me to expect the newbies to give decent performances in the same situation.
Definitely TVB needs to let this franchise die. I remember WCL saying in an interview several years back that he had no intention of making a third installment of Inbound, as he knew he wouldn’t have as much time to devote to the project due to all the other stuff he had going on….so I can only assume that TVB somehow later persuaded him to do a third installment….an obviously bad decision given this installment is such a disaster…
@iciel
I was enjoying the first few episodes too…& was thinking that WCL has really made the efforts to improve after the poor reviews from audience for the 2nd instalment. But it turns out to be another disappointment.
Meanwhile, Roger definitely knows that his character in this series won’t give him the chance to be among the top contenders for TV King. I also believe he did it just for the sake of TVB (and WCL as a friend). But i hope TVB will appreciate good actors like Roger and Wayne, and stop casting them in rubbish series as a recognition of their loyalty to the station.
@diana80 Well-said and agree! Unfortunately though, I don’t trust TVB anymore, since they have a horrible track record in this area, so there’s no doubt in my mind that they will continue to “milk” the veterans as much as they can (especially those veterans who’ve already said or implied that they are “ok” with it). It all boils down to mentality – TVB still thinks that they are the ONLY option in HK for anyone who wants to make a name for themselves in television (or any medium for that matter) so they treat artists however they want to treat them and too bad if people don’t like it. Nothing is ever going to change unless the artists themselves force it, which we all know isn’t going to happen since no one wants to rock the boat.
With Oh My Grad almost done, the next few anniversary series scheduled to air coming up don’t sound that much better unfortunately. Heart of Greed 3 sounds like it will be rehash of HOG and MR (both series that I didn’t care for, especially MR, which actually annoyed the hell out of me). Bobby’s series My Ages Apart I initially thought had potential but then I found out it’s actually a 50-episode comedy (which, let’s be honest, isn’t TVB’s forte) and the previews I saw looked dumb. Argh…I was hoping that TVB would be able to come out with at least 1 decent series this year that I would be interested in watching….guess not…
@llwy12
Agree with you. For as long as everybody just choose to stay in their comfort zone (eg. artists just accept whatever arrangement made by TVB to avoid conflicts with the station)…then nothing is ever going to change.
Meanwhile, I’ve yet to see the preview of My Ages Apart, and is actually hoping that this series would stand out among the anniversary series because I like the main casts. But from ur comment above, i think i’ll need to lower down my expectation for that series to avoid huge disappointment. Nonetheless, I still hope that Bobby, Kristal & Louis Cheung could do well in that series.
@diana80 Yea…it’s a shame that My Ages Apart has one of the best casts so far but will be wasted on a production that will likely be shoddy. Honestly, this year’s anniversary period has been largely lackluster – the few anniversary series that aired so far were disappointing and the upcoming ones don’t seem any better….their 2018 series don’t look appealing either. It’s gotten to the point where anyone who is still watching TVB’s series should go into it with little to no expectations and pray that they will somehow surprise you. Personally, I’ve pretty much resorted to watching non-TVB series nowadays (ViuTV has some pretty decent productions though probably won’t appeal to majority of HK’s housewife audiences and of course there was OCTB from Visual Brothers, which was the only series I “chased” this year). TVB definitely needs to up their game, as there is quite a bit of competition coming down the pike – aside from OCTB season 2 from Visual Brothers next year, Fox Asia just held a big press conference announcing that both of their series (“Trading Floor” and “Stained”) have finished post-production and will air in early 2018 – with so many big movie names involved in both productions (ie: Andy Lau, Francis Ng, Anthony Wong, Kara Hui, Liu Kai Chi, Joseph Chang, Patrick Kong, just to name a few….) as well as movie-level production costs in the millions of dollars (Patrick Kong said that the amount of money Fox Asia threw into the productions was enough for him to make several movies), Fox Asia definitely has the potential to blow TVB out of the water next year…
@llwy12 Shock of all shock!! Ep 1 of My Ages Apart not only didn’t suck, but it was the 1st of TVB series where the ep 1 itself is great. Usually takes 3 – 5 episodes. This one, boom! So funny! Power of Bobby! And so many familiar faces. Moses now the most highest paid and most glorified lead supporting actor.
Was disappointed with Oh My Grad. BabyJohn Choi was wonderful, Wong Cho Nam was good but the story sucked. It was the worst in 3 series.
That taxi exorcist series, am warming up to it. That;s Hubert? Love the way he speaks. reminds me of Kong Wah, Clear diction. So far, getting better.
So TVB is back to my watch list again. Am hoping My Ages Apart gets better even if it will have down time.
@funnlim Good to hear that My Ages Apart is starting off on the right foot at least (though no surprise that it’s attributed to Bobby rather than TVB itself, lol). I actually haven’t attempted episode 1 yet, as watching the previews / trailer clips totally turned me off to the series (and quite frankly, nowadays it takes quite a bit to turn that switch back to “on” for me). I had heard that there will be boatloads of familiar faces in the series – well, at least that’s according to a TVB USA promo clip which claimed that TVB “requested that all of the station’s artists participate in the series” (mostly via cameo appearances)…most likely this is an exaggeration to hype up the series, but it will be interesting to see who does end up popping up throughout the 50 episodes. I’m still not motivated enough to devote any time to watching the series though, despite how much I love Bobby….maybe I’ll just have my mom watch it and I’ll “listen in” like I did with some of the other series, lol.
When I saw that the inbound troubles theme was about schools I was excited and expecting Roger Kwok to dominate screentime. It turns out his headteacher role is just a headteacher. Barely see him around. Using a group of rookie actors in most of the scenes together just makes the series unwatchable. Also Ada is a terrible replacement for Man Yee Mun.
@jimmyszeto Plz recommend who can do better than Ada in this case? The series is not good in the sense the story is too simple without twists or ups and downs! That’s why it opened well in about 5-6 first episodes but gone down after that.
btw, no offence, but if Man Yee Mun continued to appear in this series, 50% of the viewers would stop because less funny of it. At least, Ada’s comedy acting is still consistently good 🙂
Roger is a great actor, husband and dad!
Aww. What a beautiful family!! I don’t mind if he gets the award again for best actor because he deserves it. For some reason I always thought he looked a bit like Simon Yam.