'I Not Stupid 3’ Star Jae Liew On Academic Pressures in Singapore

Jae Liew grew up under intense academic stress, much like her on-screen son in Singapore film-maker Jack Neo’s movie I Not Stupid 3. While studying at Rulang Primary School, the local actress was often assigned emceeing roles and sent for national public speaking competitions where she was expected to clinch first place.

“Our school team would often win these competitions and our principal got used to it. She told us that second and third were unacceptable. We always had to come in first place,” Liew tells The Straits Times during an interview at GV Suntec City on June 21.

She is currently on a year-long stint teaching English to senior high school students in Kanto, Japan, and was back in town to promote the film.

In the third instalment of the I Not Stupid franchise (2002 to present), the 34-year-old plays tiger mum Sophia, who terrorises her son Jayden (played by 13-year-old Malaysian actor Camans Kong) in order for him to consistently outperform his Primary 6 classmates.

Now showing in Singapore cinemas, the comedy-drama focuses on the academic rivalry between Jayden and another boy, Zi Hao (Zhou Yuchen), who are both pressured by their mothers to be the top student.

Liew relates to the storyline on a personal level. As a child, she says she really wanted to do well and spent the majority of her time in school. But she did not perform to her own expectations during her Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). She scored 234 points, which she feels was “pretty disappointing”.

“After receiving my results, my godmother drove me to various top schools to see if there was any way for me to appeal and get in. I conflated my self-worth with the brand of the school that I was supposed to enter,” she says.

Liew eventually enrolled in a neighbourhood school – she declined to reveal which one – before transferring to the NUS High School of Math and Science in Secondary 3.

On top of the academic pressure she faced, she says she was also the subject of bullying from the ages of 10 to 16.

“In primary school, the boys would shoot staples at me. When it didn’t faze me, they put them on my chair, in my pencil case and in my bag,” she says.

“When I got older, girls created websites and blogs where they would call me all sorts of names. I’ve been called every slur under the sun.”

Eventually, Liew convinced her parents to send her to high school in Melbourne, Australia, when she was 17.

“I wanted out. Everyone around me was a gifted kid and I just came from a neighbourhood school. The competition was kicked up to a whole new level. It was just too much for me,” she explains.

Liew says that her parents understood where her academic strengths lay and did not punish her unfairly, but still caned her as a child.

This was an experience she drew from when she had to strike her co-star Camans’ hands on set, which left them “all red”.

During a particularly intense scene, Sophia canes Jayden as punishment for falling below her expectations, leaving him in tears.

“I had to fight myself so much when playing this role,” says Liew, who is single and has no plans to have children. “I had to go against every moral fibre of my being to do what my character did.”

Even though she has portrayed mothers before – in Mediacorp’s Chinese drama The Journey: Our Homeland (2015) and children’s series The Fantasy Adventures Of Mu Mu (2022) – her latest role was the most challenging.

“It was the first time I was so crazy in a mum role and had to be physically abusive to a child,” she recalls sombrely.

“The producers said if it didn’t look like it hurt, it would be a no from them. I ended up having to really hit him,” she says. “Out of 100 per cent strength, I started at 20 or 30 per cent and increased it to 60. They tried to push for more, but I said no.”

I Not Stupid 3 marks Liew’s first time working with Neo, 64, and she says the writer-director “has a very specific style that he uses for most of his films”, but she was able to work with him to flesh out her character.

“I asked if we could give her a backstory,” she says. “I wanted her to be more than just the villain, because even villains have their own stories.”

In the movie, Sophia expresses her frustration over the pressure she faces from her mother-in-law during an argument with her husband (Collin Chee).

“I snuck a few lines in, and they went with it. Even the worst parents survived their own kind of insanity,” she says.

Liew made her acting debut in 2013 as the female lead of local actress-director Michelle Chong’s romance film 3 Peas In A Pod, but is best known for her prominent turns in Channel 5 dramas Tanglin (2015 to 2018) and 128 Circle (2019 to present).

She landed the I Not Stupid 3 part in early 2023, after receiving confirmation that she would be moving to Japan for her new vocation later that year.

“I asked them if they were sure about casting me as I had to leave by August,” she recalls. “I felt bad as some scenes had to be rushed for me.”

Liew is set to return to Singapore in September, when she will resume her acting career.

“Before I left, I told everyone I usually work with that I’ll see them next year. That has always been my plan.”

This article was originally published on The Straits Times.