After acting for two decades, MediaCorp actress Ann Kok is finally making her big screen debut in upcoming local flick Filial Party.

The movie role comes quite late in her career, something that the 40-year-old star herself admits to being slightly puzzled about.

"I'm a bit surprised why everyone else has starred in movies already, but not me," says the star, whose peers include actresses Fann Wong, 42, and Wong Li Lin, 41.

She adds after a pause: "But I'm more optimistic. To me, it's never too late to do anything. At least, I can say that I've been given the chance to try this."

In Filial Party, she plays the role of a hotshot lawyer who enters a TV reality competition where contestants compete to prove their filial piety to win $1 million in prize money. Boris Boo, who made Greedy Ghost (2012) and Phua Chu Kang: The Movie (2010), is the director and the movie is slated for release next year.

While she has been offered movie roles before, this was the first time she was offered a lead role.

"I've been offered some guest roles before but I turned them down. If the producers are just going to get me to show up and walk in and out, then I don't want that.

"For my first movie, I need a role with substance, so I've been holding out for the right project. I guess there is a right time for everything."

She lets on that her role had originally been written for a man and the script was reworked to accommodate her.

Mr Lim Teck, 38, managing director of Clover Films, one of the producers of the movie, describes Kok as "one of the best performers on TV right now" and "one of the most versatile actresses in Singapore".

He adds: "I was shocked to learn that she has not acted in a movie before. When director Boris and I met with her to check on her availability, we were very impressed by her eagerness to take on challenges, and by her great work attitude.

"We felt that it would be a waste if we did not cast her in a more substantial role, so we took a role originally written for a male actor and rewrote it for her."

Production for the movie is underway and she has already spotted a major difference between shooting for film and TV dramas.

"For a movie, we have to tone down on the facial expressions and don't make them as exaggerated as we do for TV. It's a different way of working, but I'm enjoying myself so far. I'm always looking to try new experiences," she says.

Throughout the 11/2-hour interview with Life!, she sounds self-assured and level-headed - a far cry from the bimbo persona that some have come to associate her with.

A lot of that ditzy reputation stems from her famously ample bosom, impressive assets that she never fails to show off in revealing outfits at the annual Star Awards.

"Maybe next time I should just show up at the awards covered from head to toe except for my eyes," she says with a chuckle.

"I just think that when you're on the red carpet or a big event like that, you should be more eyecatching. Of course, I don't want to expose too much either.

"The thing is, when I'm doing fittings for the dress, I think it looks fine, but on the night itself, after seeing how it appears on TV or in photos, then I realise that wow, it is so revealing and that the effect is so different."

She is quick to point out that on regular days, she is anything but the sex kitten she appears to be at glitzy events.

Pointing to the glittery gold and black T-shirt and shorts that she is wearing for this interview, she says: "Usually, I prefer the rock chic look or something more fun. It's just that for the red carpet. I want to look different because it's only once a year.

"So if people want to make comments about those outfits, I don't really feel bothered. But normally, I wish they would stop focusing all the attention on my body and focus on my acting instead."

Indeed, whatever people have to say about her voluptuous figure, they cannot have any doubts about how seriously she takes her work.

Despite having enjoyed the comfortable position of being known as "san jie" (Chinese for third big sister) for her status as the third most popular actress on Caldecott Hill after Zoe Tay and Fann Wong in the 1990s, she happily left it all behind for a career in Hong Kong in 2000, which ultimately failed to take off.

"I made the decision to leave back then because I had been playing too many of the same girl- next-door roles for too long. I was eager to try something new, to see the world and to see what else I could do."

From her debut in 1993 after emerging as a Top 10 finalist in the defunct Star Search contest until she packed her bags for Hong Kong, she played a string of good-girl roles, including that of a kind nurse in medical drama Heartbeat (1995) and a caring teacher in school drama Morning Express II (1995).

"I just felt like my career was stagnant. I wasn't doing new things and I wanted to go out and do something different to see how far I could go."

Her three-year stint in Hong Kong failed miserably. She had bit parts in ATV productions such as No. 8 Bus (2002) and Son From The Past (2004), but none of the roles was particularly memorable.

"If I had stayed on in Singapore this whole time, I think I would have been well taken care of," says the star, who nabbed the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artiste award for five consecutive years at the Star Awards from 1995 to 1999.

"But I have no regrets. I was the one who made the decision to go to Hong Kong. No one forced me. So how can I have regrets about it?"

Looking back, she believes she would have had more acting opportunities there had she schmoozed more.

"Hong Kong is not as simple and innocent as it is in Singapore. Over there, you have to keep having dinner and drinks with directors, which is followed by karaoke and you don't know what's going to happen next. I've never experienced any of the sleaze that you often hear about, but having to keep pleasing a lot of these people at these events - it was just too tiring for me.

"My former manager also helped me to reject a number of these dinner invites with directors because like me, she believed that I should be proving myself by putting in hard work in good roles rather than doing it this other way."

Still, she considers her time in Hong Kong "a great learning experience".

"You get to see how other people work, so you learn about a different kind of work culture. I became much more independent because I had to take care of myself and do a lot of things on my own.

"In Singapore, I live at home and I'm the baby of the family, so I surprised even myself that I could be so independent over there," says the actress, who is the youngest of six in her family. Her 76-year-old mother is a housewife, while her retiree father, 78, used to work as a taxi driver.

In 2004, she returned to Singapore to join the now-defunct broadcaster SPH MediaWorks, before going back to MediaCorp a year later after SPH MediaWorks closed.

"When I came back to MediaCorp, it had been five years since I left the company. So many people I used to work with had left and there were so many new faces acting.

"Five years of being away is a long time for an actress. I felt I had to start all over again and do everything from scratch."

By then, younger actresses such as Joanne Peh, 30, and Rui En, 32, had also overtaken her in popularity - something she says she was perfectly fine with.

"I don't think about popularity rankings and things like that. I'm just glad that I can work with different people. That's something I've always enjoy doing."

She also lapped up the chance to start afresh in terms of her roles.

"I was older by then, so it wouldn't have been right to play those sweet girl-next-door roles again, but that didn't make me sad at all. I was so happy that I could try other roles and challenge myself further."

In 2005's Love Concierge, she played a proud and materialistic wedding planner, which earned her her first nomination for Best Actress at the Star Awards a year later (2006). The award eventually went to Ivy Lee, 40.

Kok was nominated for Best Actress two more times, for her role as a boastful housewife in Housewives' Holiday in 2010, and a fairy in fantasy drama Bountiful Blessings last year. In spite of being touted as the hot favourite to win both times, she lost to Chen Liping for Reunion Dinner (2010) and Joanne Peh for A Tale Of 2 Cities (2012).

In terms of popularity at least, she is back on the map, as she snagged the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artists award for three years in a row, from 2011 till this year.

Asked whether she is eager to snag an acting award, she says she does not require one to feel vindicated.

"All I want to do is to give my best in all my roles and as long as my fans can appreciate me for my hard work, that's all that matters." Which is why she has no plans to stop acting anytime soon either.

"The more I act, the more I love it, and I really want to be in this industry for a long time. I think there is still so much more I can do and so many more roles I can try," she says breezily.

"I used to say things like, 'Oh, I'll do this for only five more years', but I end up pushing back that deadline every time. You cannot plan for these things sometimes."

Something else that has not gone according to plan is her romantic life.

The bachelorette says that she had wanted to get married "by my early 30s, but it clearly didn't happen that way for me".

She adds: "I think I've now passed the phase to get married and that's fine. I just accept it that this is my life. To me, I see marriage as a bonus. If I don't have it, then that's okay too. It doesn't bother me.

"And I think I'm the very old-fashioned type. I won't get married just to get a companion or do it for the sake of getting married. I need to have love."

As for children, she says she "may consider adopting", but not at the moment. "I look at my siblings' children and I can see that it's really not easy to bring up kids."

She has 10 nieces and nephews.

Besides, she is so focused on acting that she may have little time for anything else.

"I really want people to remember me for my acting, to say that 'oh, in Singapore, there is this actress called Ann Kok and she can act'."

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Filial Party is slated for release next year.

Ann Kok through the years

Ann Kok on how the younger generation of actors here differ from their overseas counterparts:

"I've been overseas and I've seen how the new generation work in Taiwan and Hong Kong. They respect the veterans there. The minute they go on set, they greet everyone, including the crew. But here they don't do that."

On how things have changed:

"People look at me differently now, especially in the past five years. Of course, people are still talking about my body, but at least they also do me justice and think that I can act."

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