Talking to Desmond Tan is like chatting with a friend.
The athletic stud sauntered into our office dressed in a slim-cut suit and settled comfortably into a chair across me, before flashing me a smile. If we were worried about how candidly he would answer our questions about love and his relationships, it was soon allayed by his seemingly honest responses. We got the feeling that whatever he was saying came straight from the heart and wasn’t being sugar-coated just because it was an interview.
Cutting a fine figure with his tall, bronzed physique, this up-and-coming actor caught the public’s attention in his role as the (extremely sexy) villain, Lin Dehua in drama Together. Since then, he’s set many a young girl’s heart a-flutter in numerous other Mandarin dramas and even clinched the Rocket Award at last year’s Star Awards for his role as the (extremely sexy) rickshaw puller, Luo Xiaoxiao in A Song to Remember.
Tan has since also been named as a celebrity ambassador for Samsung’s Galaxy Camera; a role which we have no doubt his chiselled good looks helped warrant.
We speak with the hunky actor on what he’s like as a boyfriend, the cheesiest pick-up line he’s ever used, and what he’d like to do with Maggie Q.
herworldPLUS: We’re sure your female fans would love to know what the first thing you notice in a girl is?
Desmond Tan: The girls that normally catch my attention have a certain kind of aura. I don’t really like noisy people, so usually in a group, I tend to take notice of the quiet girl because there’s usually something elegant about her.
HWP: So you like sweet, demure ladies. What would you say is a dealbreaker for you then?
DT: When she is overly loud.
HWP: Care to elaborate? Do you prefer quieter girls because they complement your personality?
DT: I’m someone who enjoys the courting journey before embarking on a relationship, and I like finding out about the other party on my own. So if you’re going to tell me your entire life story within the first few hours of me getting to know you, it doesn’t leave me with much else to work on.
HWP: In your last drama, you played a clingy boyfriend in Poetic Justice. What kind of a boyfriend would you say you are in reality?
DT: Well, let’s just say I tend to be the one who puts less effort into the relationship. It may be partly because of my work that I don’t have so much time to plan romantic gestures and outings, but I also love being spontaneous and doing impromptu things.
I don’t really fancy celebrating Valentine’s Day or anniversaries because I feel that romantic moments should be allowed to just happen at any time and anywhere. It makes the relationship more colourful rather than when you’re always expecting something to happen just because it’s a “special occasion”.
HWP: You’ve had to share quite a few kisses in your time as an actor. Do you remember your first onscreen kiss and what it was like?
DT: For the longest time in my career, I never had the chance to kiss anyone. But when I was filming the drama The Enchanted in Malaysia, I discovered that I had to kiss four girls on the show. So my first kiss as an actor took place in a car, where my co-star Wu En Yi simply planted a kiss on my face before walking off. It was very brief and not very romantic as it came after I had received a scolding, so I don’t know if you would consider that a first kiss or not.