We know that local actor Glenn Yong is one of the most handsome celebrities in the world when he ranked 62 in TC Candler's 100 Most Handsome Faces in 2022.

The 26-year-old certainly lives up to his title as he now has a young child actress fangirling over him on the set of new movie I Not Stupid 3.

Speaking to AsiaOne recently, director Jack Neo revealed that a cast member has a crush on Glenn, who acts as kind-hearted teacher Mr Lee in the film.

Turning to Glenn, the 63-year-old director said: "There is a little girl who really likes him. To what extent? You tell them. Share, share, share."

Glenn, who looked visibly bashful, replied: "I am very shy."

Jack continued: "When the child actress saw Glenn, she said, 'Wow, how can there be such a good-looking person.'"

He added that everyone teased the young actress and asked her if she has a crush on Glenn, to which she admitted that she does.

"The girl asked if I could wait 10 years for her to grow up," said Glenn laughingly, looking a bit embarrassed.

Jack continued chuckling: "Ten years is fine, you would only be in your 30s, she would be 20."

'Mr Lee! Mr Lee!'

Speaking about his experiences with the young cast members during filming, Glenn said that he realised he is "not good at managing students" after the first week of filming.

He said: "I thought that because my age is closer to them, I would be able to speak more to them. But these kids, they have so many questions and sometimes you just want to have your own time. But they would always go, 'Mr Lee! Mr Lee!' So it almost felt like there was zero 'me time' on set.

"I think it's really opening up my heart to accept all of them into my world, because we are going to spend three months together filming this movie."

He added that he received at least "200 questions" from the young cast every day.

Despite that, Glenn felt it was a new experience as these interactions helped him to connect with them.

Glenn said: "They are really curious, so I think the way to connect with them is to be interested in their lives and when they ask you a question, you ask them back, get to know them better and from there they would want to open up their lives to you… The questions they asked are actually really smart. They think really deeply when they ask it."

He also assured us that he is very close with the young actors and actresses now.

"We are tied. The kids and I, we talked about anything. But I think after the show, I have to consider whether I want to have kids at such an early age, so that I have some time, you know," he said, laughing.

'These children are really talented'

Jack also shared with us that he is excited to be back working on the franchise as he likes being around children.

He said: "I think these kids are really fun. I have always liked children, so that's why I have four of them. Now that my children are all grown up, there is no way to enjoy their cuteness anymore.

"So this time when I returned, I saw a lot of children and I thought they are very cute. When you see them, you just want to talk to them and they will give all kinds of answers and make you go crazy."

Jack also shared with us the dilemmas he had while casting these young actors and actresses during auditions.

He said: "These children are really talented. Especially when they are auditioning [for their roles], I wanted to cast four children as the main characters. But I ended up accepting over 30 children and then realised that among them, there are a few who are really very good.

"They have the potential to be leads but there can only be so many leading roles, so we have no choice but to cast them as supporting characters. Among them, you can also see that they put on great performances."

'You have got to treat the students like an adult'

In preparation for transforming into Mr Lee, Glenn drew from memories that he had when he was a student and reflected upon how his teachers related to him and vice versa.

He said: "My school life is still really vivid to me. I remember that the younger teachers were the ones that I could really connect with the most because they actually made more effort to connect with the students to listen to our worries and our dreams."

Glenn also contacted his primary and secondary school teachers and got them to introduce the current batch of young teachers to him, so that he can learn about the school culture.

He eventually met up with a few and had some interesting findings.

"The teachers' experiences actually correlate with our script. It is exactly the same, what we are showing now is the same thing that the younger teachers faced in their schools," he added.

Glenn also learnt from them that because young people have more exposure to social media nowadays, they have become more knowledgeable and teachers will need to be more sensitive to the students' thinking.

He said: "You have to treat the students like an adult and they take in the things that you say. That is one thing that I learnt from the younger teachers, that if you really treat the kids with respect, they will in turn listen to you."

I Not Stupid 3 is currently in production and also stars Terence Cao, Collin Chee, Patricia Mok, Xixi Lim, Jae Liew and Lin Ruping. The movie is set to release next year.

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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com

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