Christy Chan (陳潔玲) signed with TVB after ranking in the top 10 of the 2012 Miss Hong Kong pageant. After joining TVB, she signed up for the artist training class. However, due to a lack of opportunities, she left the company in 2017. She is now a KOL, operates a party room, and is currently a host on ViuTV’s cooking show, “Beauty and the Feast” (索女人妻ichi烹). She recently did an interview recounting her time at TVB and the hardships she went through in the five years.
Despite it being a cooking show, Christy Chan reveals that she doesn’t know how to cook, not even an instant noodle. She expressed, “I am really busy. Once I started working, it was at TVB, working from morning to night. After I left, I started to do business. Cooking is a luxury to me.” Christy Chan revealed after she left TVB, she started becoming an influencer and operated her own party room, making her very busy. However, when looking back at her time at TVB, she said there is no job in the world that is more exhausting compared to working at TVB.
She went on to say, “People often say bosses are cruel. Can they get crueler than what happened to me before? When I was acting, they actually gave me $28 (an hour). They really did it. I filmed a 10 episode show in Vietnam. At that time, I was a newbie. I had no bargaining power. At that time, even though I knew $28 was a bit crazy, but I had no choice nor could I do anything about it. But I would remember this incident. I said to myself if I had a choice, I would increase my own value. You don’t need to have any affection for this company. If you had any benefit to them, if you asked for $20,000 an hour they would still give it.” As for the news of Auston Lam being offered $12,000 for his renewal contract, Christy Chan said she wasn’t surprised.
After Christy Chan finished with the artist training program, she signed a full time artist and management contract. However, she says the “value” wasn’t uplifted by that much. In fact, because she was a new actress, her show price was low and had to work everyday. She expressed, “I was doing cheap labor at that time, children’s show, travel show, extra roles. Really didn’t have to worry about not having work. Even got paid $20,000-30,000 a month, but all that I endured made my health really bad.”
Christy Chan treated all this work as a learning experience. She practically took all kinds of jobs. She did say no to doing rape scenes and revealed that there was a period where they would always film at Disneyland. Christy Chan revealed, “I was an intern. The director and the producer wouldn’t hold back. They would always film from early morning to the latest, would always bask in the sun. There was one time I even had to hold the umbrella for the artist. It’s things like this that make you determined to succeed.”
Six months before her contract was up, Christy Chan reveals she was frozen by the company. It’s because of these experiences that led Christy Chan to leave the company in 2017. Christy Chan also says she doesn’t desire to be an artist as being an A-list actress doesn’t guarantee she will make a lot of money. She claims, “I make more money than 90% of TVB artists right now.”
Credit: hk01 (1, 2), Christy Chan IG
