The insatiable public demand for anything related to the Channel 8 soap opera The Little Nyonya and its lead actress, Jeanette Aw, is burning up the Internet.

Google Trends, which charts what people type into the engine, notes that searches for her name spiked last month up to 60 times its normal rate.

Google also shows that people want to know everything about her, from her height to who her boyfriend is.

Here are the most common things said about Aw, in blogs, forums and in the tabloid news. Pick the one that is true.

1. The single actress with the sweetie-pie image is actually a divorcee

2. She once got a male co-star sacked because he got too frisky during a love scene

3. The role of the mute heroine Juxiang in The Little Nyonya was written for her so that her bad Mandarin would not turn off viewers.

None of it is true, says Aw, 29, an edge of irritation creeping into her voice. 'When I read comments about me and they slam me as a person or judge my character, what makes them so selfrighteous that they can judge? What makes them think they can condemn?'

She wants to set the record straight about how she got the plum roles in The Little Nyonya, among other things.

When the series debuted on Nov 25, a reporter had asked her if the character of the mute Juxiang was written especially for her to play to her strengths - and hide her weaknesses.

'I was very upset. They were drawing a conclusion, that my speech would have a problem. Why would the station want to make the audience accept me after eight years? It's not as if I am a newcomer,' she says.

It is a tiny display of exasperation from Aw, who, during the three-hour interview and an hour-long phone conversation, stayed generally calm and professionally genial.

Madam Chia Men Yiang, 46, The Little Nyonya's executive producer who oversaw the auditions, says Aw was picked because she had the potential to master the material, even though she had never tackled such a big role before.

And no, the roles of Juxiang and Yueniang were not written for Aw, she adds. Several actresses auditioned for the roles, Madam Chia says, but would not say who.

While fellow actress Fann Wong has gained a reputation for steely reserve when speaking to the press, Aw has become known for being a tough interviewee because of her mask of inscrutability.

She is reserved, she says, because she has been burned by the media. In 2003, she made a throwaway remark about an innocent incident during the shooting of the popular drama series Holland V. The Chinese-language press turned it into a story about a male actor who got cheeky with her during filming.

While she did not name the actor, the paper narrowed it down to Shaun Chen.

'I was new and I said it without thinking it would upset anybody. I learnt that you really need to think before you say anything. It might get someone into trouble,' she says. She and Chen accepted it as a misunderstanding and they now get on well. Chen has had a steady stream of MediaCorp drama roles since 2003.

As for the whispers that she is a divorcee, she says they were started years ago by an ex-boyfriend who claimed they were married after she broke up with him. She invites anyone to check with the Registry of Marriages.

A more hardened actress might have shrugged off the gossip as part of the fame game - the price one pays for publicity. But Aw will not play by those rules.

'Being in this line, I understand that people are going to talk about me. But I will not subject my family and friends to this kind of scrutiny,' she says firmly.

The media and Internet backlash after her star turn in The Little Nyonya has included those who criticise her Mandarin diction.

She has been taking lessons in the language for six months at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in the hope of cleaning her speech of whatever it is that seems to be annoying some viewers.

'Some people say I try too hard to pronounce every word. Some say I'm not very clear. I'm confused,' she says, sounding a little resigned.

She counts from one to three in Mandarin and gives a very credible impression of a flat, Singaporean Hokkien-inflected accent; then a crisper one with big tonal leaps and rolling r's ('yiii, errrr, saaan'). She can do the range of accents - the problem is, which one will silence the critics?

Senior lecturer Dr K.K. Seet, who tutored her in theatre studies at NUS, says the decision to take the language classes, then make that fact public is 'very Jeanette'.

'She's earnest, even though people might say 'Aiyoh, is her Mandarin so poor',' he says, adding that camouflage is not her style.

Perfectionist streak

Aw herself says she is aware that in showbusiness circles, she has developed a reputation for being aloof.

'I go to a social event and people think I'm proud and stuck up. But I just don't know how to make small talk,' she says. She thinks chit-chat about clothes, make-up and shopping, the obsessions of some Caldecott Hill stars, is 'superficial'.

She prefers to zip home after work. She has a flat in the same Bukit Timah condo development as her parents. For company, she turns to an inner circle of friends she has had since her school and university days. They throw a protective ring around her, she says. What she tells them stays private.

Given her idea that she can succeed in showbusiness on her own terms, her self-professed perfectionist streak and her love of ballet, neatness and punctuality - it is no wonder her friends have teased her for being princess-like. She even collects Precious Moments figurines.

'In a way, I'm spoiled. I had everything I wanted as a child. When I�was modelling part-time at university, my parents would drive me to casting and auditions. Even my friends give in to me,' she says, laughing.

Her perfect, dance-trained posture further adds to the air of quiet determination, as well as making her seem taller than her 1.63m frame. The Little Nyonya is indeed very little at 44kg, but she says she is well within her normal weight range.

She takes dance aerobics at her fitness club or works out at her condo gym.

She does not need to watch what she eats, and she says she eats a lot. She used to eat chocolate every day but - and here comes the princess part again - she stopped because after she moved out, she no longer had easy access to the ready-to-munch chocolate pieces her mother prepared and left for her in the family fridge.

It would be easy enough to envy her life. Born the youngest of three children to an accountant father, now 68, and a real estate agent mother, now 57, she studied at some of Singapore's finest schools - Raffles Girls' Primary, Crescent Girls' and National Junior College. She studied English literature, psychology and theatre studies at NUS, winning a campus beauty pageant title and a modelling agency contract along the way. Then, she was one of a handful selected for the honours course in theatre studies.

Even before she graduated, she was crowned winner of the Route To Glamour talent contest at the now-defunct MediaWorks station in 2001.

Dr Seet recalls a camera crew from the station filmed her at the convocation.

For her honours dissertation, she analysed the work of controversial Singapore playwright-director Elangovan, whose plays, as Dr Seet observes, 'are provocative, filled with expletives'. Indeed, she chose Elangovan because she could exercise her 'marvellous critical faculties' on the challenging material, he says.

Overachiever with 'three kids'

She was doing her thesis and acting in shows at MediaWorks' Mandarinlanguage Channel U at the same time. She would go to the library after long days on the set, he says. Despite the workload, she completed her dissertation on time without asking for an extension.

For the graduation play, the class put on a version of the classic drama The Women, which they renamed The Tai Tais. She was not the lead actress but Dr Seet put her at the centre of the publicity posters and programme anyway.

'We knew she could sell tickets and it was completely sold out. All the engineering boys came,' he says, chuckling.

Aw considers herself an 'overachiever'. When she took up ballet in Secondary 1, for example, she was much older than her five- and six-year-old classmates. With gymnastics training and determination on her side, she passed the examinations ahead of time and soon caught up with her own age group.

In her teens, ballet was her first love, followed by stage acting. But when the TV opportunity came along in 2001, she decided to see how far she could go down that path, she says.

In 2007, when she was not among MediaCorp's Star Awards Top 10 Most Popular Female Artists, she was upset. She had made the list every year since 2003, after her star-making turn as the innocent Mo Jingjing in the drama series Holland V.

'My kids were watching the show at home and they were like, 'Why didn't Mummy get in?' They called me and they actually cried.

'They watched The Little Nyonya and when Juxiang died they cried! It's hilarious. They were the ones who told me 'Don't be upset. Work for next time'. For three-year-olds, they are very sensible,' she says.

The triplets - two boys and a girl - are not her biological children but the children of a close friend who died in 2005. Their father asked Aw to be a legal guardian. They live with their grandparents in Singapore. 'They call me every day and I see them as much as I can,' she says.

She says she does not have a boyfriend. Being a personality can have its drawbacks in the dating game.

She has met a few men who seem more entranced by her public image than her as a person.

'They would freak me out,' she says, with questions about life among the glitterati.

Then there was the guy who told her he had a terminal disease and had only a few months to live. She went out with him partly because she felt sorry for him, she admits. But something did not feel right about him and she stopped seeing him.

'That was three years ago and recently I saw him again and he looked very healthy,' she says with a laugh.

Aw has a trusting nature, says Mr Ken Lim, 44, who runs Artiste Network, the company that manages her.

'She has wholesomeness and innocence,' he says. 'It allows her to think better of people. That is why I signed her on and that is what I want to preserve,' he adds.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jan 12, 2009.