Mookda Narinrak, Hussawee Pakrapongpisan & Chai Chatayodom Hiranyatithi Talk New Singapore-Thailand ‘Decalcomania' Series

Yahoo

2 days ago

Singaporean production outfit Mocha Chai Laboratories and Thai studio The One Enterprise are currently in production for mystery thriller series Decalcomania.
Set to be released in December this year, Decalcomania stars Thailand's Mookda Narinrak (So Wayree), Hussawee Pakrapongpisan (So Wayree), Chai Chatayodom Hiranyatithi (Master of the House), Pat Chayanit Chansangavej (Dalah) and Thaneth Warakulnukroh (Mad Unicorn), alongside Singapore's Pierre Png (Crazy Rich Asians), Hong Hui Fang (Ajoomma) and Gladys Ng (Under the Net).
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Currently filming in both Singapore and Bangkok, the series will debut on Thailand's One31 channel and OneD application, with a Singapore broadcast on Mediacorp's Mewatch.
The series follows two women who suddenly wake up in each other's bodies: one is 26-year old Neungdeaw Ananthikun, a hardened Bangkok nightclub owner with a haunted past; the other is Leia Woo, a glamorous Singapore socialite living under the protection of a powerful pharmaceutical tycoon. After a car accident, their souls are mysteriously swapped, and the secrets they have spent lifetimes burying begin to unravel. One must survive a world of high-society manipulation, while the other must navigate a criminal underworld she has never known.
Narinrak plays the role of both women who undergo the soul swap — a challenge which has pushed her acting skills to a new level. She has spent nearly a decade in the TV and modeling industries in Thailand, after winning Miss Teen Thailand in 2011.
'This project is a challenge for me as I need to play two characters in the same series, so I did quite a bit of homework and workshops to bring out the different characters,' Narinrak tells Deadline.
'When I was in these workshops, sometimes the director will join in and pick the best way of expression for these characters. It's not just one class or workshop, but a long journey to find the right match for both my characters, in their emotional expressions, body language and way they talk, to create the different layers,' adds Narinrak.
Narinrak reunites with fellow actor Pakrapongpisan in Decalcomania, after previously working together in several Thai shows.
For Pakrapongpisan, it is his first time working with actors outside of Thailand. 'The Singapore cast and crew have been very kind and nice,' says Pakrapongpisan. 'We've had friendly discussions and script reads together and we're heading in the same direction of making the best project we can.'
He said that he would like to act in a musical in the near future, and particularly enjoys films and television shows based on true stories — singling out Titanic as one of his favorite films.
Hiranyatithi is a veteran actor in the Thai industry, with Decalcomania marking his first-ever international co-production in his 27-year acting career. In 2024, he starred in Netflix's hit Thai series Master of the House, which gave him an international audience he had never experienced before.
'The series was told in such a way that is very Thai, but on an international scale that people can also relate to,' says Hiranyatithi. 'I got recognized a lot when I went on vacation abroad, with people coming up to say that they saw the series. I went to Italy, and people said they had seen it. My brother, who lives in America, also got to see it. He never got to see my work before this.
'It's been a great stepping stone in my career, because I've been doing this for very long and I didn't think that I would be stepping up now. I thought I would stay right there and be good with what I was doing already,' adds Hiranyatithi.
Hiranyatithi has spent a majority of his career employed full-time in-house by Thai channels, before recently going independent since his last contract expired.
Relishing this new season in his career as an independent actor, Hiranyatithi says: 'It's very intimidating because I've never known any other way of working before this. I have always been attached to a certain channel. Now I need to choose my roles and projects more because I've always just done whatever was thrown at me. This time, at this age too, I should be able to explore more options for for my career and I was so lucky that I got this project.'
Speaking about his first scene for Decalcomania, Hiranyatithi says he did one of the most challenging scenes right from the beginning: 'I had just landed and I came from the airport straight to set. The first scene, I spoke three languages in one scene. I've never done that in my life. I had to speak English to the doctor, speak Thai to my daughter, and then I had to call my guard and speak in Chinese.'
Decalcomania was conceived by Singaporean creator and director Chai Yee Wei (Wonderland), with the pilot penned by screenwriter and co-creator Chance Wanlass. The project took off at the Asian Television Forum (ATF) in Singapore in 2022, with executive producer Michelle Chang finding an overseas collaborator in Thailand's The One Enterprise.
The series is led by Thai showrunner Nipon Pewnen, who is The One Enterprise's chief of TV production, with a writing team headed by Wattana Weerayawattana (Thicha).
Chang says that she had originally looked to co-produce the series in South Korea, but she later pivoted to Thailand.
'The original version was supposed to be Korean, but we were looking at the market at that time and felt that Thai dramas were coming up. They did a few Netflix originals and then I looked at the fan base for the Thai actors,' says Chang. 'The Thai market is a good place, because their budgets are quite healthy, and a lot of Thais speak English and Mandarin as well. That's why we wrote the pilot as a Thai-production.'
Chang also highlighted that Thai productions are traveling very well globally, naming titles like Netflix's Master of the House, box office hit How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies and Bad Genius.
On what drew him to Decalcomania after Chang pitched the series to him, Pewnen says that the concept of soul-swapping was special, as well as the story's broader life philosophy. 'I love the theme of the story, where if you try to get something else that you don't have, you get into a lot of trouble. But if you find satisfaction in yourself, you're going to be happy with life,' says Pewnen.
Art direction is led by Pawas Sawatchaiyamet (Monkey Man) and visual effects is headed by Lee Stringer (Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, Star Wars: Clone Wars).
Decalcomania is also funded by the International Co-Production Grant from Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
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