With an acting portfolio that includes Crazy Rich Asians and a Chris Hemsworth-led action flick, the “23:59: The Haunting Hour” star is just getting started.

What with her countless modelling and hosting gigs, as well as the release of her own music video last year, you could say that <a href="https://www.instagram.com/natalia__ng/?hl=en">Natalia Ng</a> was born to be in front of a camera. In fact, it was only a matter of time before the Malaysian-born, Singapore-based artiste graced the big screen. Now, with&nbsp;the release of the local horror film sequel, &quot;23:59: The Haunting Hour&quot;, she has &mdash; as a vengeful snake spirit.&nbsp;

In an exclusive interview with L&#39;Officiel Singapore, Natalia tells us more about her long-held passion for acting, her experiences on set at Crazy Rich Asians and 23:59, and all the&nbsp;details of her upcoming second single. Read on below for more.

23:59 THE HAUNTING HOUR Official Trailer

What made you venture into acting?

I&rsquo;ve always had a big interest in acting since I was little. I took drama classes in university and I did a lot of plays in school. I&rsquo;ve always liked performing arts. Later on, I realized that I don&rsquo;t have as much interest in the Broadway scene as I do in the film industry. I have a lot more interest in film production, directing and screenwriting. I&rsquo;m just a fan of the movie world.

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How did you get your start in acting professionally?

I actually did a couple of Hollywood productions, but they were very minor roles. I was a stand-in for Blackhat with Chris Hemsworth, directed by Michael Mann. I did Crazy Rich Asians as well, as a featured extra. I was one of the best friends of the lead. It was a fun experience. It was nice to see really big sets and how they work. I have lots of passion for that.

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Did you have a similar experience filming 23:59: The Haunting Hour?

As a featured role in Crazy Rich Asians, I saw how they treated the main cast, and I was like, &ldquo;Wow.&rdquo; Then when I went into 23:59, I was like, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so nice to be treated like a main cast member now!&rdquo; (laughs)

23:59 is obviously not as large as a Hollywood production, but it&rsquo;s pretty big on its own because we did travel to both Singapore and Malaysia to film. But local productions are more chop chop, they don&rsquo;t drag out things as long. They kind of just get a scene and move on.

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Can you tell us more about your role in&nbsp;23:59?

I play a vengeful snake spirit. She&rsquo;s got some powers, like turning into a human in order to catch her prey. Basically, she was angered because the army did something to her. Her actions in the film weren&rsquo;t for fun, but to get revenge on them for what they did. So, in the film, she comes and just destructs the entire army.

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&quot;I really like that [my character] is quite complex and that ultimately what she was doing was out of love. As evil as she was, she was doing it for love. You might think she&rsquo;s not so bad after all.&quot;

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How did you prepare for your role?

I studied three characters from different films. The first is from a Chinese film called The Legend of the White Snake. That one&rsquo;s about a demure kind of character who seduces men too, but to get what she wants. Her character was the most similar to mine that I could find, except that my character is a python, not a white snake.

The other character was Mystique from X-Men, because her makeup is very similar to mine. For the film, the crew made a latex bodysuit for me by mirroring the one worn by Mystique. The last character is The Enchantress, whom I referenced for her malicious and evil demeanor.

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What are some memorable moments that you had on set?

The one the comes up to me was when I filmed a couple of my first kissing scenes. In the first scene I did, I was in full hair and makeup for my suit. I had on a latex mask that was moulded after my face and went over my lips too. When I met my cast member, Richie Koh, for the first time, I was in the whole get-up and he had this look like, &ldquo;Oh my gosh, I have to kiss this!&rdquo; So it was kind of interesting to see his reaction.

The other person I had to kiss was Mark Lee. He&rsquo;s such a veteran in the Singaporean film industry and it was such a profound moment for me to film the scene. He was very professional and he really guided me through it. We did it so quickly and we didn&rsquo;t have to do many takes.

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What did you learn from the experience?

For this role, I was actually not given any lines. I had to act completely through body language. Initially, I thought, &ldquo;This is easy, I don&rsquo;t have to memorize any lines.&rdquo; But when you appear that many times and you don&rsquo;t have lines to help you tell the story, you need to have a presence and really know how to act with your whole body. It&rsquo;s so much more difficult than you&rsquo;d expect.

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Did anything spooky happen on set?

I was actually scared that that would happen! Because we would film from 8pm and wrap at 6am, and we filmed in the National Service camp in Malaysia in the middle of a forest. But when I was there it was all right because there were so many people and it just seemed like a normal set. So, thankfully, nothing happened to me, maybe because I was a ghost. (laughs)

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What kind of films would you like to star in next?

I&rsquo;m still quite fresh and I really want to explore all the different types of characters out there, but if I had a choice I would love to do a romantic comedy or an action film. In fact, if I could do a romantic comedy that&rsquo;s also an action film, that would be a dream come true.

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Are there any directors that you&rsquo;d especially like to work with?

I&rsquo;m open to working with any director at this point, but the dream would be to work with James Cameron and Christopher Nolan. These two are my top directors and I really admire them for their vision and the amazing films they produce.

In terms of the local scene, there&rsquo;s a whole score of good directors that just don&rsquo;t have the opportunity right now because we need more local fans to really support the local industry more. I think that&rsquo;s the issue we have at the moment.

HEADER PHOTO CREDITS

Photographer&nbsp;Jericho Soh

Styling and Makeup&nbsp;Jamie Ng / JN Entertainment

Hair&nbsp;Jen Lai / Shunji Matsuo and&nbsp;007hairextension

Jewellery Bvlgari

Outfit Purana #risingfashion

Natalia Ng is Ready For the Silver Screen

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