TWO years ago, a friend heaved a huge sigh and told me: 'So poor thing, this Phyllis Quek, now acting in a supporting role...'

We lowered our heads, and considered the sad premature fall of a likely Ah Jie (Big Sister) of Caldecott Hill.

Phyllis had come in third in Star Search 1995 and won the Best Newcomer award at the Star Awards 1996.

She landed her breakthrough role acting opposite Hong Kong biggies Aaron Kwok and Daniel Wu in the movie 2000 A.D.

At her peak, she flew between Taiwan and China filming dramas like What A Beauty and Palm of Rulai.

But the former model, who was once expected to take her place next to Zoe Tay and Fann Wong, unexpectedly took on second billing in the 2006 Channel 8 drama Rhapsody In Blue.

Ditto a year later in the drama Live Again.

That's not the worst of it actually.

Imagine glam puss Phyllis doing a Sadako (of Japanese horror flick The Ring), crawling on all fours.

The year was 2005 and she was filming The Scarlet Kid in Hengdian, China.

Phyllis, 36, described to me what happened: 'I had food poisoning and was down with diarrhoea and vomiting. It was so terrible that I was crawling to the toilet to puke and then crawling back to bed.

'I was alone and so scared that I cried.'

She saw a doctor the next day but that wasn't of much use. 'Hengdian is an 'ulu kampung' (remote village) and the clinic didn't look like a clinic at all,' she said, sighing.

She refused to have an injection at the clinic because she didn't trust the hygiene of the needles.

Desperate, she asked her manager in Singapore to buy medicine from her family physician and pass it to her Singaporean co-star Vincent Ng, who was about to fly out to Hengdian.

That food poisoning episode was just a harbinger of worse things to come.

Phyllis also developed skin allergies and suffered more bouts of food poisoning.

One was so bad she could take nothing but bread and Milo.

She became emotional and temperamental.

At one stage, Phyllis confessed to me, she even called a friend in Singapore in tears to pour out her woes.

'I was miserable, I was sick and still had to work. I couldn't wait to go home,' she recalled.

Her hectic lifestyle, with bouts of illness, continued till 2007. Then, it dawned on her.

'I had been working like a mad dog since 2001. At times, I even had to (shuttle) between Taiwan and China because filming for my projects overlapped.

'I worked for at least 14 hours practically every day for six months. I became so carried away by work that I neglected what I really wanted - my health and my happiness,' she said.

Decided to stop

So Phyllis made a bold decision - to stop working for a few months and accept fewer assignments after that.

Never mind that she was beginning to be seen as a has-been. And was getting relegated to play second-fiddle to younger stars.

'No one can have the best of both worlds,' she told me. 'You can't be very popular and earn lots of money and still have time for yourself.

'I know I made the right decision.'

Phyllis returned to Singapore in 2007 to spend time with her grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

She took up yoga and learnt how to play golf.

Occasionally, she took up assignments that piqued her interest, both in supporting and leading roles.

She is now working on Kelvin Tong's new movie Kidnapper where she plays a rich tai tai blackmailed into helping her former lover kidnap a young boy.

An artiste's career is like a graph, she told me. It can't always be going up and up.

She even found love.

She asked me to let her romance remain private, but revealed that he is a friend of a friend and doesn't work in the showbiz industry.

With all that's going right in her life now, would she return to that hectic life again, I asked.

She was silent for a while before admitting the mere thought of it was enough to scare her.

There's reason to be. Phyllis is still suffering from that punishing lifestyle.

She revealed that her stomach has become very sensitive. She throws up after eating raw food and can fall ill if she eats things she is not used to.

She also has to abstain from alcohol, or she'd have terrible migraines for a few days and 'puke like the Merlion'.

'If I didn't stop working then, I'll be like chai poh (dried turnip shreds) now - sucked dry with no more juice left in me,' she said, chuckling.

'Unexpected? No, she's right choice for role'

ARTISTIC people have quirky tastes.

But when the profitability of a movie and your career depends on a 'quirk', the risks can be high.

Director Kelvin Tong doesn't appear bothered by risks, judging by the way he chooses his leading ladies.

Last year, he got Fiona Xie to star in his horror flick Rule #1. Hot sexy babe, yes, but there's no denying that Fiona's star has lost much dazzle in recent years.

This article was first published in The New Paper.