Why Huang Biren Took A Six-Year Hiatus From Acting & Other Facts About The Actress

Huang Biren began acting after graduating from drama training classes at the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation in 1988. She went on to star in three productions the following year – Patrol, My Sweet Rival and Return of the Prince.

Did you know that the highest education attained by Huang Biren is the O Level certification?  She was studying for A Levels at Ang Mo Kio Pre-U Centre when she signed up for the acting classes conducted at night. At the end of the training, Huang Biren was one of the few who was offered a contract and she thus began her acting career. She was preparing to follow her mother’s expectations and further her studies at Hawaii Pacific University.

“Early on, when my career was not smooth-going, my mum kept encouraging me to quit and study. But I told myself I wanted to prove something to her. She was very disappointed in me. She gave up hope in me.”

After two decades, Huang Biren sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry when she announced her retirement in 2008. She did not agree with the terms offered by Mediacorp and wanted to spend time with her family, especially since she just had her first daughter that same year.

Fans of Huang Biren breathed a sigh of relief when she later returned to the small screen in 2014 as a freelancer, beginning with Three Wishes opposite Thomas Ong.

In 2020, Huang Biren shared that she “didn’t really leave the industry, just that there were no job offers for her.” During her break, she was able to be there for her three children and have time for herself, a luxury she probably didn’t have before.

ICYDK, Huang Biren and Zoe Tay are the only two actresses who have won the Star Awards‘ Best Actress award four times. She won her first statue in 1998 in Stand By Me where she played a loving wife caring for a paraplegic husband played by Xie Shaoguang, before winning for Beautiful Connection (2002), My Lucky Charm (2005) and most recently in Recipe of Life (2022). In 2009, Huang Biren was also crowned the All-Time Favourite Artiste title after winning the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes 10 times.

During her tenure, Huang Biren also pulled in viewership ratings. According to 8 Days magazine in 2007, they found that she was the lead actress in seven of the 11 dramas with the highest viewership figures between 1997 and 2007.

Speaking of the former actor Xie Shaoguang, Huang Biren revealed in 2021 on Quan Yifong’s Hear U Out that she felt he had the best chemistry with her. “We didn’t even need to rehearse our scenes when we were on set. I think he’s the one with whom I had the best chemistry even if we didn’t communicate.”

Having three kids of her own, it shouldn’t be surprising that her maternal energy would spread to the younger actors she worked with. In 2022, Huang Biren shared that actors Shane Pow and Julie Tan, who had worked opposite her as her children in Three Wishes, still call her “mummy”.

In September 2021, Huang Biren took to her Instagram to warn people that someone was misusing her name and photos for a tummy-control underwear ad online. The ad copy also implied that “Liping jie“, likely referring to fellow actor Chen Liping, had sent the underwear to her.

In 2013, Huang Biren was supposed to make her return to the television screen in The Journey: A Voyage. She had to pull out last minute as she discovered a 10cm cyst on one of her kidneys the same year and had to go for an operation immediately to excise it.

Huang Biren was told by two different masseuses that her abdomen didn’t seem proportionate and went for a CT scan. “When I saw the results after a CT scan, my heart sank. The cyst was bigger than my kidney. I was so shocked and I kept asking, ‘Why does it have to be me?”

It’s been over forty years since the photo was taken but netizens could easily recognise Huang Biren from this image she posted of her primary school days. Could you identify her as well?

In a 2015 interview, Huang Biren gave her two cents regarding talks that she seems “cold or unlikeable”.

“Yes, yes, I do get that. I think one of the factors is that I’m tall. Also, I don’t really go around smiling. When some of the younger actors see me, they would freak out, kind of. Because I had been away for so long, they didn’t know me, and heard I can be very serious when it comes to work. For Julie, Aloysius and Ian, I was acting as their stepmother in Tiger Mum, so they were a bit apprehensive. I thought it was important for me to break the ice. At the end of the day, they realised I’m not so scary, and definitely not a tigress!”

In the same interview, Huang Biren opened up about directors’ negative perceptions of her when she first started in showbiz. She explained that there was a language barrier as the directors then were mostly from Hong Kong and spoke a dialect, Cantonese, that she wasn’t too familiar with. “There were times when I had to ask the directors to repeat themselves because I couldn’t understand, and it upset them. They raised their voices and they were so loud that you could hear them from the other end. And they often cursed. I didn’t understand why they were so loud and uncouth.”

Another instance that left her with the label of being “the actress with an attitude” was when she closed her eyes to rest during an overnight shoot. She had chosen to move near the director and cameraman so they could find her easily. The director saw her with her eyes closed and called her out. “I tried to explain that I was just resting and it would be easier and more convenient to find me if I stayed there, but he wouldn’t have it. He just labelled me as ‘the one with an attitude’. Perhaps I gave people a bad impression when I was younger.”

Text: Ho Guo Xiong/HerWorld