'If people know where you are eating, what you are wearing, who you are dating, it's quite hard for people to accept you in an acting role because there is no mystery left' Pamelyn Chee, who feels that, as an actress, she should be as private as possible -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE

At various times, she told them she was either working in a hotel or as a graphic designer. And sometimes, the 25-year-old had trouble getting her story straight.

It's not that she is ashamed of her thespian vocation, she tells Life!: 'I am responsible for my own life. They shouldn't have to worry about me not having a real job.'

Clad in a colourful print tunic dress, Chee, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Korean heart-throb Lee Joon Ki, says: 'Anyway, I figured when they finally read about me in the newspapers, everything will come to light and I would have saved myself a lot of explaining.'

Indeed, her days of deception are officially over when her retiree father and limo-business proprietor mother catch her in The Princess Of Nebraska, the opening film for the 21st Singapore International Film Festival next Friday.

Directed by Wayne Wang, the godfather of independent Asian-American cinema, Nebraska looks at the plight of modern Asian Americans as seen through the eyes of Sasha (Ling Li), a pregnant Chinese student in San Francisco deciding whether to have an abortion. Chee plays X, a call girl whom Sasha befriends and has a fling with.

To research her role, she hung out at the 'dirtiest, seediest lounges in San Francisco, chatting with the hostesses and mama-sans and learning their body language and friendly flirtations'.

Did she feel awkward about the lesbian scenes? 'What makes you think it's hard?' she asks, giving a startled glance. 'It's not a big deal. It's all part of acting.'

She also relied on the guidance provided by Wang, 59, whom she describes as a visionary film-maker: 'It's important for actors to have instincts and trust their directors. Because if you don't trust the directors, then good movies may never be made.'

Wang sings high praises of Chee. In an interview with Canadian online magazine Exclaim!, he compared her favourably with Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, whom he worked with in the romantic drama Chinese Box (1997).

A theatre studies major at Victoria Junior College, Chee chose to study liberal arts at Emerson College in Boston over law at the National University of Singapore.

'I was a young, brash, unthinking kid with a chance to run away,' she reveals.

The avid volleyball player left Emerson after a year and enrolled in the New York University where she graduated with a degree in graphics communication.

But she found more inspiration in acting than in academia, appearing in a slew of indie and student films and TV commercials.

'There are jobs for Asians but there are also many Asians competing for those jobs and I wonder if there're actually enough jobs,' she says. 'I want to make 10 films a year and not just one good film a year.'

And it is that ambition that brought her back to Singapore late last year where she is busy developing two movies - an espionage thriller with writer/director Nicholas (no relation) Chee, the co-owner of Sinema Old School, a cinema dedicated to showing Singapore movies, and a joint Singaporean-Sicilian production about a female stalker.

She is also shooting a few TV projects but declines to discuss the details.

When asked about her private life, she jokes: 'If I tell you, I'd have to kill you.'

She adds: 'I always feel that as an actor, you should be as private as possible. If people know where you are eating, what you are wearing, who you are dating, it's quite hard for people to accept you in an acting role because there is no mystery left.'

douglast@sph.com.sg