Starburts

Derek Chang is ready to go big.

- John Ng

“Given another choice, I would have made the same decision. Even if you ask me 10 times over, my decision will still remain the same,” Derek Chang once said during an interview in Taiwan. It was made in reference to his decision to donate 45 per cent of his liver to his father, who was diagnosed with liver cancer three years ago. During our interview and photo shoot with the Taipei-born actor, we asked how the experience has affected his perception of life.

“I did not expect anything from what I did other than for my dad to be healthy again,” the 25-year-old Chang says. “It taught me to be vocal about love and to treasure the present. Because of that, it has brought my family closer, and that is priceless.”

Since finding fame in the 2015 drama Be With You, Chang’s career has blossomed enormously, with him being featured in a number of hit series such as Prince of Wolf, Stay With Me, The Man from the Future, and My Dear Boy. His rapid ascent seems less like luck and more of an inevitability.

“I have been busy preparing for next year’s Chinese New Year movie, Da San Yuan [where he and Ella Chen play a pair of mahjong masters who fall in love with each other]. It is my first big screen role, and I really hope that this is the beginning of me getting opportunities to act in more films,” he says.