Beautiful Malaysian

Carmen Soo

Carmen Soo Wai Mun is a Malaysian Chinese model and actress. Born and raised in Malaysia of Chinese descent, she currently resides in Petaling Jaya, Selangor with her family. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and can speak fluent Malay, Mandarin and English while also learning Tagalog to help her television acting career in the Philippines. She was part owner of a boutique named ‘Kushi’ located in Bangsar.

Carmen won a local  modeling contest in her hometown of  Kuala Lumpur. Little did she know  that this was a pivotal point in life that would see her going places she only dreamed of. The next step was a one-way ticket to competitive Hong Kong where she launched a successful modeling career. Whilst jet-setting all over Asia for shoots, Carmen also shot music videos for the likes of Aaron Kwok & Jacky Cheung.

Till today, the campaigns still keep coming – 6 years running as the ‘Pantene girl’ and most recently, the regional face of Ponds. She played a cameo role in the 1999 Jackie Chan movie entitled Gorgeous alongside Shu Qi that spurred her love for acting. With her breakthrough role in the film ‘The 3rd generation’, she acted opposite pop singer Nicholas Teo & rightfully won ‘Most promising actress’ at the 2006 Malaysian film awards. But this multi-tasker didn’t stop there – with singing a childhood passion, she also collaborated with Nicholas Teo for the duet theme song of ‘The 3rd Generation’

Carmen  began modeling at age 17 and moved to Hong Kong at age 20 to further her modeling career, which has brought her all over Asia, including Singapore. At 156 cm (just under 5’1″) tall, her petite size is not conducive to catwalk modeling; hence most of her shoots tend to be print and television commercials. However, she has graced local magazines’ covers such as New Man, V Mag, New Tide and Nu You. She is a spokesperson for international watch brand Longines along with Malaysian theatre personality Paula Malai Ali, and for Celcom with Singaporean singer JJ Lin.

With acting & singing under her wing, it’s no surprise that theatre was next on her list. As a newbie on stage, doubts were raised whether a ‘former model’ could pull of the demanding lead role of the pop theatre production – ‘The girl from Ipoh’. Well, with sell-out crowds, night after night, she quickly put the critics to rest.

Her most recent television acting role is in Trio & a Bed, where she is one of the three female leads, together with Amber Chia and Annabelle Kong. The show also stars three other male counterparts as their various and overlapping love interests – Daniel Tan, Danny Wan and Jeffery Chong.

In September 2008, Carmen starred in an ABS-CBN (in collaboration with Malaysia’s Double Vision) soap opera with Filipino actors Jericho Rosales, Cristine Reyes and Christopher de Leon in the teleserye Kahit Isang Saglit that was aired in Philippines and Malaysia, and worldwide by TFC. Kahit Isang Saglit later earned an International Emmy Award nomination.

In April 2010, she became a co-host on Wowowee along with Kelly Misa, Jed Montero, Isabelle Abiera, RR Enriquez, Valerie Concepcion, Mariel Rodriguez and Pokwang. She was the first and only Malaysian actress who appeared in a Filipino TV show.