Kit Chan

The singer-actress on playing a baker on the Toggle web series Patisserie Fighting, her secret dream job and the life lessons learnt from her brief corporate stint.

- Cheryl Ong

8 DAYS: On Toggle’s Patisserie Fighting, you play a biomedical researcher who quits her dayjob to be a pastry chef. This is your first TV role in 15 years. What took you so long to do another drama?

KIT CHAN: That’s because my last drama experience was pretty traumatic (laughs). When I shot Ch U’s Cash is King in 2001, it was meant to be a three-month production, but it dragged on to five months. During which, I was getting by on three to five hours of sleep every day. So that just left me really scared of doing another TV series. But it’s been so long that the pain has subsided.Also, when I heard Patisserie Fighting was a web-series, I was curious about it ’cos people said [streaming] is the future of TV and that sounded exciting. I’m a very curious person and I always like trying new things. Besides, it’s only eight 15-minute episodes, so it’s manageable and I really enjoyed working on it ’cos I wasn’t exhausted every day.

You’re an avid baker yourself. What new skills have you learnt from being in this drama?

Actually, even though I like to bake, I’m not very sophisticated in my baking ’cos I always make the same old simple things like cookies and butter cakes. But to prepare for this role, [co-star Taiwanese actor] Chris [Lee] and I attended a baking class. So I learnt to make some fancy stuff like mille-feuilles and lemon tarts.

Have you encountered any culinary disasters?