The 56th Golden Bell Awards announced its finalists on the afternoon of Sep. 2, 2012.
Known as the most beautiful National Day celebration host, popular Vietnamese "Hang TV" host Nguyễn Thu Hằng (阮秋姮) was nominated for the "Most Promising Newcomer in a Drama Program"award (戲劇節目最具潛力新人獎) at the Golden Bell Awards after making her television debut in "Cross the Ocean to Love You" (飄洋過海來愛你).
Upon receiving news of the nomination, an editor at the Taiwan Immigrants' Global News Network's (新住民全球新聞網) immediately reached out to Nguyen and congratulated her for such stellar performance in her debut work.
Meanwhile, the editor also managed to secure an exclusive interview with the breakout star.
"Cross the Ocean to Love You" was first broadcasted on DAAi TV (大愛電視台) in March 2021, and the show centered around four women who married and immigrated from their home countries to Taiwan.
After several grueling years, they met at a "Sanchong New Immigrant Growth Class" (三重新住民成長班) and helped each other through various ups and downs, finally establishing roots in Taiwan and finding their "homes" in one another.
The series is based on a true story, and the scene is set twenty years earlier.
Through the four main characters, the audience can witness the challenges new immigrants face when they arrive in Taiwan.
Nguyen told Taiwan Immigrants' Global News Network that filming for the series started in August 2020 and took around 5 months time to finish.
Having never trained as an actor and had no previous experience in acting, Nguyen initially couldn't get used to there being four cameras on set at all times.
She revealed that she often didn't know which camera to look into when saying her lines and often messed up the blocking, which ended up accidentally leaving her co-stars out of frame.
The biggest challenge for Nguyen was to portray the true story and act it out in Taiwanese.
As Nguyen had never spoken Taiwanese before, she had to spend more time than others in practicing and rehearsing her lines so that she could convince the audience.
Night after night, Nguyen would practice her Taiwanese on her husband and would often turn to crew members on set when she was uncertain about variousTaiwanese pronunciations.
After every filming session, Nguyen would ask the director her overall performance and make note of what needs improvement.
Her determination in learning led the cast and crew to praise her for her positive attitude and insistence to improve.
To better portray her character, Nguyen would actively seek out Nguyễn Hạnh Nguyên (阮幸源), whom the story is based on, before filming and participate in volunteer work with her.
In this way, she could better understand the character's personality and lifestyle.
Nguyen revealed that the character's personality and the situations she faced is actually quite similar to when she first arrived in Taiwan.
The storyline enabled Nguyen to "play herself" and portrayed the scenes of a new immigrant stepping foot onto Taiwan for the first time, to perfection.
Her acting debut caught the attention of the judges of the Golden Bell Awards, and the original protagonist, Nguyễn Hạnh Nguyên , praised her for her perfect interpretation of herself.
Nguyen expressed her surprise at having been nominated for the Golden Bell Awards and revealed that she had been tending to her 51-day old child when friends alerted her of the good news.
The editor of the Taiwan Immigrants' Global News Network also reached out to congratulate Nguyen only to be met with the loud cries of Nguyen's child and a non-commital "Oh" when they delivered the good news to her.
Nguyen admitted that two hours later, when she and her husband finally manged to get their newborn to go to sleep, did the significance of the nomination dawn on them.
Nguyen shared some behind-the-scenes photos of the set and story with Taiwan Immigrants' Global News Network as well as a video documenting the memories of filming the show with readers.
The Taiwan Immigrants' Global News Network are very happy for Nguyen's win and also encourages readers to watch "Cross the Ocean to Love You."
The news network wishes Nguyen all the best and hopes she succeeds in taking the esteemed prize home.
