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After 19 years away from the screen, former Mediacorp actor-turned-hawker Huang Yiliang is making his return to acting \u2013 and he\u2019s doing it alongside a familiar group of old friends.<\/p>\n
Huang, last seen onscreen in 2007 drama The Golden Path, stars in local microdrama Bingbingbiangbiang Kopidiam, alongside former colleagues Cassandra See, Qin Wei, Cherie Lim, Jin Yin Ji, Apple Hong, Tang Miao Ling, and Joy Yak.<\/p>\n
And while you might think he returned because he missed acting, he revealed that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth.<\/p>\n
Speaking to 8days at the press conference for the kopitiam-themed microdrama, in which he plays the familiar role of a crab bee hoon stall owner (yes, just like in real life), Huang looked slightly out of place. After all, it\u2019s been nearly two decades since he was last a regular fixture on our screens.<\/p>\n
In fact, before accepting the role, he didn\u2019t even know what a microdrama was.<\/p>\n
When asked what made him want to return to acting, he said it was largely thanks to his former colleagues.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m very thankful to this whole group of old colleagues. They supported me, encouraged me and cheered me on.<\/p>\n
“When we got together, I heard them talking about making a short drama. To be honest, I had been out of the industry for so long that I didn\u2019t even know what a \u2018microdrama\u2019 was. Short dramas, short videos… all these things were very unfamiliar to me. I was quite out of touch with the media scene,” he said.<\/p>\n
When he was asked to join the project, he was told filming would take place on his day off, which was a big reason why he agreed.<\/p>\n
Thinking it sounded like fun, he went for it, only to realise later that it was a “much bigger production” than he expected, complete with overseas shoots and multiple roles.<\/p>\n
While Huang was happy to reconnect with his old colleagues, he admitted that returning to acting was never really on his mind.<\/p>\n
“You know how some people say they have the \u2018itch\u2019 to return to filming after some time away? I didn\u2019t have that urge at all. Honestly, I hadn\u2019t thought about coming back to acting at all in these 19 years. Even now, I don\u2019t have that \u2018itch\u2019. That\u2019s really the truth,” he said.<\/p>\n
What he does miss, however, is spending time with the people he used to work with.<\/p>\n
“I enjoyed getting together with them \u2013 having meals, drinking tea and chatting. We worked together for so many years, so I enjoyed catching up with them much more than I enjoyed acting,” he shared.<\/p>\n
“I think what I really missed was the people I used to work with, rather than acting itself. Maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m busy with my own life. I simply never thought about acting again,” he added.<\/p>\n
When asked if he faced any difficulties returning to acting after such a long break, Huang responded with a question of his own.<\/p>\n
“Twenty years ago, I could swim, and I was actually quite a good swimmer. Even though I haven\u2019t swum for 19 years, if you throw me into the water, do you think I\u2019ll still be able to swim?”<\/p>\n
Apparently, the answer is yes. For Huang, getting back in front of the camera felt much like getting back in the water.<\/p>\n
He revealed: “When I started filming, the first scene, the first shot, felt quite fresh. But it also felt like I was a fish back in water. It wasn\u2019t unfamiliar at all. I didn\u2019t have the fear that a newcomer would have, because I already knew how to swim. I\u2019m a fish! If you throw a fish into the water, of course it can swim!”<\/p>\n
When asked if he would ever give up his Circuit Road crab bee hoon stall to return to acting, Huang declared without hesitation: “I don\u2019t want to give up either one. I like both of them.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that his hawker business is still very much a priority. After the press conference and a round of interviews wrapped up, Huang was eager to get back to his stall. It was, after all, a Friday, his busiest day at the stall. As the man in charge, he still handles pretty much everything himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do everything myself. I handle everything from start to finish. It\u2019s like being an octopus!” he laughed.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s gotten used to juggling multiple tasks at once, much like many other hawkers who run their stalls largely on their own.<\/p>\n
“Once you keep doing it, practise makes perfect. The more I do it, the faster I become, and the better I get at it,” he added.<\/p>\n
As for his highly publicised spat with his hawker stall neighbour, Huang kept things brief: “We\u2019ve drawn a very clear line between us. You do your thing, and I do mine.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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After 19 years away from the screen, former Mediacorp actor-turned-hawker Huang Yiliang is making his return to acting \u2013 and he\u2019s doing it alongside a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--u1a1RkQH--\/c_crop,h_1125,w_2000,x_0,y_1\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/08\/27\/huang_yiliang_hawker_returning_to_acting_kopidiam.png?itok=PQkSKvP2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2649,979,4326,2648,203,59,21696],"class_list":["post-79966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-acting","tag-fish","tag-huang","tag-returns","tag-water","tag-years","tag-yiliang","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}