MAID FOR THE BLUES

Meet Chelsea fan and actress Andrea Kwan, who acts in local movie, The Maid




Andrea with me outside THE Salon at Wheelock

Andrea's hair: Jessie Ong
Ivan's hair: Yen
Photos by HEDY KHOO

Copyright: SPH Digital Images

AS a child, Andrea Kwan started watching football because she wanted to be part of the "in'' crowd … the adults in her family.

"As an only child, I wanted to follow what the grown-ups did,'' explains the Eurasian actress who plays an Indonesian maid in the local film The Maid.

"Once the match started, the adults started picking their teams, and it was all very exciting at home,'' she adds. That was during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, and she still has a relic from that tournament … the official mascot, Pique.

"At that time, I was supporting West Germany,'' she says. From the World Cup, her attention shifted to the English League, where she started supporting Liverpool.

"I liked Liverpool during the Kenny Dalglish era,'' she says. But when the likes of Gianfranco Zola, Gianluca Vialli and Perliugi Casiraghi came to England, her attention shifted from red to blue.

"I've liked Chelsea since the early 1990s,'' she says, shooting me a look reserved for brainless Manchester United fans when I suggest her support for Chelsea is a newly-acquired fashion accessory.

"And I used to feel sorry for them,'' she adds. Well, look who's sorry now!

"They had Zola, Casiraghi, Vialli, Frank Le Beouf and Didier Deschamp, and, of course, Ruud Gullit … it was an incredible team, and it was incredible that a team of such calibre could not win the Championship!'' she says.

"They had such quality in their squad and they were wonderful to watch even though they didn't win the championship, but I followed them nevertheless and yes, I am very happy that they're champions now,'' she says, with a grin the size of London.

It's easy to win after spending À300 million ($924m) on players, I tell her.

"It's not just the money,'' she argues. "The squad that they had during the time of Gullit was also of a very high quality. Now, however, they have discipline and self-belief.''

Was it Jose Mourinho then?

"I think Chelsea owe a lot of their success to him. There is a lot more cohesiveness in the team now,'' she says.

"And yes, like The New Paper reported, Chelsea's B team is better than the Liverpool team, but while Mourinho has the resources of the Russian's roubles, Mourinho has the decisiveness to let people go if they aren't happy or do not fit into his team,'' she analyses.

And what does she think of Mourinho?

"Mmmmmm,'' she says, smacking her lips. "He's good. Sexy, too. And that Armani trenchcoat, now that's a fashion statement!''

Andrea plays Wati in The Maid, a character she describes as sneaky.

"Wati is a friend of Rosa, who is played by Alessandra de Rossi,'' she says.

"Oops, I almost said Alessandro del Piero!''

And is she anything like her sneaky, timid character in real life?

"Not at all. She is so timid. I'm not,'' she says.

Was it difficult playing a maid? How did she prepare for the role?

"One of the things I had to do was to cut my hair. It used to be much longer,'' she says. "Also, I had to listen to tapes to get the Indonesian accent right. But to some people, I sounded more like a Filipina! But that is their interpretation, their own opinion. I think I sounded Indonesian.''

Did she receive any formal training as an actress?

"I trained to be a hotel manager in Switzerland, actually. I spent seven years there, working after my studies ended. Eventually I felt homesick and had to return,'' she says.It was an intense craving for local cuisine that led her to make tracks for Singapore.

"Prata or laksa, you will miss it terribly when you live abroad. The craving for fried carrot cake or hokkien mee was really so intense. It was, like, I'd have died a happy person if eating a single plate of fried carrot cake was the last thing I did.''

Not bad, I tell her. Seven years training and working in the hospitality industry in Switzerland and you return home to play a maid.

"My mother wouldn't be very pleased if you put it that way,'' she says, shooting me a look reserved for dirty old men who abuse their maids.

Okay, so we'll leave her mother out of this. The Maid being a horror film, has she had any personal horror stories about maids?

"No,'' says Andrea. "The maids we've had were very nice. And we treated them well.

"There was one who came to Singapore very skinny, and by the time her contract ended, she left very fat,'' she adds.

An abundance of fried carrot cake and hokkien mee, no doubt.