FANS of local MediaCorp actress Jeanette Aw were up in arms last week when news broke that their idol won't be starring in the yet-to-be-filmed Channel 8 drama Absolutely Charming as planned.

After all, they were looking forward to Aw's return to local TV. Her last series was 2010's Breakout.

The role of a disgraced fox spirit in Absolutely Charming has gone to Taiwanese actress Cherry Hsia.

But it's not just her fans who are disappointed.

Aw, 32, admitted that she, too, was looking forward to acting in the show.

She told The New Paper: "I was actually very excited to be doing this show as it was going to be my first ugly role.

"The character that I was supposed to play is actually a beautiful fox spirit who is banished to earth with ugly looks as punishment for doing something disgraceful.

"In my 11 years as an actress, I've never played a physically ugly character, and was relishing the opportunity to do so. I hope another such role will come up soon."

Aw said her advisers were worried that by doing Absolutely Charming, she would have been overexposed.

According to the initial programming schedule, she would have had five TV dramas airing at the same time in the next six months.

What's more, on some days of the week, she would be appearing on both Channel 8 and Channel U at three different time slots.

But Aw's fans can at least look forward to her new Channel 8 drama Rescue 995, which sees Aw play a paramedic alongside Tay Ping Hui, Yvonne Lim and Pierre Png. It premieres tonight at 9pm.

She and Tay play each other's love interest in the show.

Said Aw: "I have got feedback from my fans and other people that they like my chemistry with three leading men in particular - Tay Ping Hui, Qi Yuwu and Christopher Lee.

"So I think a lot of them are going to enjoy the chemistry that me and Ping Hui have in this drama.

"It's nice to work with him. We don't have to use words. We will know what each other wants from a certain scene, even with a simple action like a nudge."

Even though Aw was missing from our small screens the past year, we'll be seeing even more of her than ever in 2012.

Aw has been busy filming Destiny In Her Hands in Malaysia and Precious (a remake of The Little Nyonya) in China.

In Destiny In Her Hands, she plays a girl with a broken palm line who gets shunned by people as they believe that she would bring bad luck to them.

Reprising her role

In Precious - which sees her starring opposite her The Little Nyonya love interest Dai Yang Tian - she reprises her role in The Little Nyonya. But this time instead of being Peranakan, her character grows up in a Chinese family of physicians.

What these two dramas have in common is that Aw once again fleshes out the tragic on-screen characters that TV viewers have come to associate her with.

Said Aw: "I have been playing tragic characters for a long time, so I really wanted to try out something new like a comedy.

"After Rescue 995, I filmed Jump! where I finally got to play a comedic role as a secondary school teacher opposite Zhang Zhenhuan.

"As all theses dramas will only be out this year. I know I won't be nominated at this year's Star Awards and it's nice to attend it without any pressure."

So the only thing that Aw said she would concern herself with was "looking good" at MediaCorp's annual glitzy extravaganza, which will be held in April.

When she first started attending the Star Awards a decade ago, Aw had often wore white as that was her favourite colour.

After receiving comments that it would be refreshing to see her don something different, she turned up in a black dress one year - and was told that she should have just stuck to her white dresses.

"People will always have something to say, so I'm not too concerned about that. "I'll still leave everything to my stylist this year," she said with a laugh.

This article was first published in The New Paper.