THESPIAN
OH LING EN
YEAR 2, PSYCHOLOGY
Despite acting since the age of four and recently as a bully in local Mandarin TV thriller Dark Angel, freelance actress Oh Ling En gets stage fright when she speaks in public at times. In fact, she says her real-life personality is very different from a browbeater’s.
But the 21-year-old psychology student has found many opportunities at NTU to help her hone her oratory skills and build her confidence, which will be a boon to her acting aspirations.
“You may think I’m confident because I act, but that’s not always true,” says Ling En, who has acted alongside popular and seasoned Singapore TV stars like Tay Ping Hui, Chen Liping and Rui En.
Ling En at Star Awards 2023, where she was a nominee for Most Popular Rising Star. She was up for the same category in this year’s awards.
“Since the camera has been trained on me as a child, I get self-conscious and think that people are watching me, which is obviously not the case. I’m learning more about it now as a psychology student,” she laughs.
But being able to present in front of a large group of people for many projects in her NTU modules has helped her to build her public speaking skills and learn how to calm her nerves.
The NTU Talent Scholar, who won Mediacorp’s Young Talent Award twice, when she was 10 and 11, wants to give a voice to causes through roles like that of the “nasty bully” she played in the Dark Angel TV series.
“If someone mentions that they enjoyed my performance as a bully, I take the opportunity to advocate against bullying instead. In the show, my character didn’t have a good ending; that speaks louder than words,” she says, adding that she would relish roles that champion disadvantaged communities or people with special needs.
Behind the camera, the prodigy found encouragement from veteran Mediacorp drama co-stars. “Zoe Tay and Tay Ping Hui were very patient and kind. They would guide me gently even though I took a long time to get my lines out. As I grew older, I became more interested in acting and saw them as my role models,” says Ling En with a smile.
Veteran star Zoe Tay patiently guided Ling En, who played her character’s stepdaughter in crime drama Devotion. The pair reunited on the silver screen in Dark Angel, a show that aired in 2022.
Ling En, 8, and Hong Kong star Jessica Hsuan on the set of fantasy television series Bountiful Blessings.
From reel life to real life
Acting has made her a better student too. “Ironically, I do better in my studies when I’m busier. I have learnt to balance my time between work, school and social life pretty well. If I have schoolwork to get to, I’ll prioritise that,” she says.
NTU has also opened doors to opportunities beyond acting. She has been an intern producer at SPH Media, where she got to, among other things, edit and write scripts for videos on social media.
She also embarked on an Undergraduate Research Experience on CAmpus (URECA) project at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, where she facilitated discussions at workshops to get insights from participants that were used to develop a telehealth service.
Ling En considers making friends from classes and in hall the highlights of her university experience so far. The former resident of Tanjong Hall raves about the warm, communal vibes from NTU’s halls, which she witnessed firsthand even before joining the university.
“My brother studied at Nanyang Business School when I was younger. My family would sometimes pick him up from Hall 8, and we’d soak in the vibrant environment. I wanted to follow in his footsteps, so I enrolled in NTU. He has graduated but comes back to coach his hall’s cheerleading team.”
This story was published in the Mar-Apr 2024 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
