HONG KONG – Natalie Tong, the Hong Kong actress whose recent portrayal of a middle-aged mother navigating marital crisis in ViuTV drama Sunset Rainbow earned widespread acclaim for her vocal delivery and diction, has opened up about the pivotal moments—including a brutal public rejection by a French theater master and a tearful panic attack opposite Louis Koo—that transformed her from a hesitant performer into an award-winning leading lady.
In a candid interview on director Patrick Kong’s online program Casting with Sam, Tong traced her evolution from actress-by-accident to Best Actress winner. Her breakthrough, she explained, came not from ambition but from discovery. “I was never sure acting was for me—it just seemed interesting,” she said. That changed on the set of A Fist Within Four Walls, produced by veteran Lee Tim-sing. “I will remember this my whole life. For the first time, I found myself inside a character. The family dynamic was so well-built, and the directors were so experienced that from rehearsal onwards, I was fully immersed. They didn’t give me time to fool around.”
Yet even as her craft matured, Tong faced crippling insecurity. She recalled her first collaboration with action star Louis Koo on the 2013 disaster film Out of Inferno. “His presence is overwhelming,” she said. “The moment you see him on set, the entire atmosphere changes.” So intimidated was she that she avoided him entirely, calling mentor and actor Chan Kwok-bong repeatedly in tears. “You just lack confidence,” Chan told her. “You know what to do. You know you can do it.” When fear persisted, he urged: “Stop thinking. Walk in with that state. The best state is to feel everything on set. If you keep telling yourself you’re scared, you’ll perform worse.” Tong described this as her first formal cry for help in her career. Koo later called her “silly” upon learning of her distress—but the lesson stuck. “The only way to face a powerful presence is to let go of fear and focus on the moment,” she said.
The most searing experience, however, came during a workshop in Malaysia with renowned French theater master Philippe Gaulier. Tong admitted she arrived unprepared. During an improvisation exercise, before she had even settled on an approach, Gaulier struck a small gong and dismissed her publicly. “You’re worthless,” he told her. “As an actor, I don’t want to watch you. As a person, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I froze,” Tong recalled. “No one around me reacted. They just kept performing. I sat there on stage crying, like garbage.” Though fellow actress Jennifer Yu consoled her afterward in the restroom, the damage was done. Yet upon completing the course, Tong returned to Hong Kong and immediately began filming My Unfair Lady. “My antennae had gone from one to more than 30,” she said, describing a newfound sensitivity to her co-stars and environment. The performance earned her the 2017 TVB Anniversary Award for Best女主角, the industry’s highest honor.
Tong’s journey—from humiliation to triumph—underscores a universal truth: sometimes the greatest breakthroughs come from the deepest discomfort. For aspiring actors, her advice is simple: “Fear is inevitable. Letting it control you is a choice.”
