Rebecca Spykerman, 27, Actress.

Posted on 30 April, 2012

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When I spoke to Rebecca, she was days away from her debut in Twelfth Night, the popular Shakespeare In The Park event that brings audiences in the thousands to Fort Canning Park. Are you nervous, I ask. “No pressure”, she says with a hearty laugh, for the first time breaking out of her calm and cool demeanour. “If anything, the pressure comes from wanting to put on a good show for the audience.”

Rebecca, 27, actress, and once, a nomad. Having lived in countries like Amsterdam, France, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney, and now Singapore, she speaks with a slightly transatlantic lilt. “Bruce, the director for Twelfth Night, once commented that watching me was like watching a show from all over the world. I can sound Singaporean, or American, or Australian, at times.”

Strange accents, schtrange accents. She must be doing something right. The young actress already has a string of high-profile plays and musicals to her name, from the lead role of Viola in Singapore Repertory Theatre’s Twelfth Night to Pangdemonium’s Spring Awakening to The Kitchen Musical on AXN. It’s a dream list for any newly-minted thespian.

 

“Acting was always something I wanted to do. But I never really did anything until I decided to enrol in Lasalle,” she says. She initially auditioned for the acting programme, but didn’t have enough experience to get in. “I went for the foundation course instead, and found that I really, really love musicals.” And that was that. She graduated from Lasalle with a B(A) in 2009, took a year out, and then plunged herself into the world of acting.

Her biggest role so far? Viola. “Spring Awakening was a successful show for me. But this is a whole new ball game, it’s humbling me. Viola is such an integral role, and she goes through an abundance of emotions – it really pushes me as an actor to communicate this intensity with clarity.”

To be able to sink her teeth into good, meaty roles took a long period of soul-searching and convincing of family and friends, even though it was something she wanted to do since she was a kid.

“I went through a journey of my parents thinking it was just a phase. But now they give me their full support,” she says. Her parents work in advertising and dentistry.

“As you know, acting is not secure, it never is. You have to pursue it on your own, especially when you haven’t made a name for yourself yet.”

It’s not too far off now, Rebecca. Not far off at all.

 

BY TARA TAN
IMAGES BY CRISPIAN CHAN, REBECCA SPYKERMAN