JAYLEY WOO

Every year, we get a Babe nominee, or two, who baulk at the title.

"Maybe if you call me a pretty boy..." said Jayley Woo on the phone, soon after she was told of her nomination.

The gamine 21-year-old MediaCorp actress was happy but puzzled. As a teenager, she was no one's idea of a babe and was bullied for having "mushroom" hair and, she said, for being "flat".

"All the guys called me a tomboy, although they didn't have the b***s to say it in front of me," she said.

Woo said that she did go through a period of trying to be more "girly", with make-up and dresses, during her first relationship.

"Guys want to feel like they're with someone they can protect."

Judging from the mushroom hair that Woo still sports - "I still have it, but it's different" - that phase clearly did not last long.

"I realised it's stupid to want to be different. What I took home from that phase was, you just have to be yourself. If people don't like you for who you are, then too bad."

The New Paper New Face 2011 finalist has been busy making us proud on the small and big screen in the past year. She starred in local movies Ghost Child and That Girl in Pinafore, in TV dramas like The Dream Makers and CLIF 2 and in variety shows like the second season of Channel U's Date A Star.

She also landed two endorsements, with cosmetics brand Silkygirl and traditional candy White Rabbit.

FAN FOLLOWING

It is no wonder that a trip to shopping mall JEM to buy bread can result in fans squealing, as happened last week.

Luck, she said, figures largely in the work she has been getting.

"For New Face, it was my (twin) sister (and fellow actress Hayley Woo) who wanted to join, I was just there to accompany her. I don't know what kind of luck is following me around."

After hearing of the other Babe of the Year nominees, she is hoping luck will favour her again.

"I don't know about Babe, but I think I would win 'Vainpot of the Year'," she said.

Get The New Paper for more stories.