It has been a year since she was crowned The New Paper Flame Awards’ Babe Of The Year.

But MediaCorp actress Rebecca Lim admitted to The New Paper she is still not used to being called a hot babe and is even “very uncomfortable” with it.

That’s because the 25-year-old was overweight and a tomboy growing up.

She was president of the Taf Club, an exercise programme for overweight children, from Primary 4 to Primary 6.

Lim, who went to CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ for her primary and secondary education, tipped the scales at 61 kg when she was 12 years old.

She also played soccer with her brother and his friends and was not into girly stuff, she said.

“The first time I wore heels was to my junior college prom,” she said in a recent interview.

“I was 19 when I first plucked my eyebrows. I was a pretty late bloomer. I’m innately still a tomboy, I’m just blessed with feminine features.”

She has been nominated in the My Hottest Girl Crush category in the m:idea Youth Choice Awards.

m:idea is a youth-led media enterprise from the School of Film & Media Studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

The other nominees are actresses Felicia Chin, Rui En, Jesseca Liu and Joanne Peh and former The New Paper New Face contestant and now radio DJ Jacqui Thibodeaux.

Lim, who won Miss Photogenic in the Miss Singapore Universe pageant in 2005, doesn’t mind that the public is fixated with her looks.

She said: “It’s great to have both looks and talent. It’s okay to be greedy, right? At the end of the day, I hope people will see me as having both.”

Proof of her talent: She was named Best Actress at the Asian Television Awards in 2010 for her role as a lawyer in the Channel 5 drama series The Pupil.

‘Chased’ by boys

She told The New Paper that she wasn’t lucky with boys until sh ewas in her late teens.

“I had zero male attention in secondary school.

When we had exchange programmes with boys’ schools, the boys asked me to pass letters to my friends.”

The first time a guy showed interest in her was when she was a 17-year-old student in Victoria Junior College.

She was very excited at experiencing a “chase” for the first time, she recalled.

“I didn’t like him initially but he put in quite a lot of effort to woo me. For example, he ordered pizza during recess and brought it up to my class.He lived in the east but he took the bus with me to my home in the west. I remembered thinking, wow, so this is how it feels.”

He won her over after a month and the relationship lasted a year.

She can’t remember why they broke up, only that it didn’t end on a happy note. They are not in touch any more.

Lim said she regretted agreeing to be his girlfriend so soon.

“I shouldn’t have made it so easy for him. From my personal experience and my friends’, the guy may treasure the girl more if she makes him fight for her,” she said.

But she doesn’t believe in playing mind games and not showing her true feelings.

Lim said she became less awkward with boys after junior college and became more sociable.

Men began noticing her at the Singapore Management University where she got her accountancy degree. There she was involved in two relationships.

She had another after she left university and began acting.

She admitted that she falls in love easily, despite her friends advising her to play hard to get. She said she found it difficult to hide her feelings.

Mind games

“It’s tiring formeto play mind games. I’m already an actress and I want to be as real as possible outside ofmy career,” she said.

“Mind games are a lie and imagine starting a relationship with a lie? I want a genuine relationship. I’m not a young girl looking for excitement.”

She added she likes to shower the guy with attention, care and food.

She is not dating now because she doesn’t have the time “to invest in knowing someone”.

The practical side of her scoffs at romance gestures, calling them “total rubbish”.

That’s because she’s no longer as idealistic as before, Lim explained. She knows a relationship isn’t about romance all the time.

She is now filming a new Channel U drama titled Start-Up!, which also stars Xiang Yun, Tay Ping Hui, Kate Pang, Adeline Limand Zhang Zhenhuan.

She plays Yin Xuan, a determined young woman who launches a tech start-up but faces betrayals and secrets from her past.

Yin Xuan also becomes interested in Tay’s character, who is married.

The series will be telecast in March.

Said Lim: “There’s a lot of darkness and Yin Xuan has a lot of secrets that burden her, some left by her late father.

“I had a lot of challenging scenes and it was difficult to grasp the right emotions and reactions.

“I asked (Tay) for advice and he showed me how to play the scenes. He’s not selfish and he’s a very good actor to work with.”

[email protected]

Get The New Paper for more stories.