ZHENG Geping was aghast when I asked if he wore anything else beneath his boxer shorts.

No, I wasn't making a bold pass at him.

The veteran actor had cheekily told me of his saucy scene with funny gal Kym Ng in their new TV drama Table of Glory.

The drama, which airs every weekday at 9pm, centres on the lives of table tennis players.

Besides the two veterans, the cast includes Guo Liang and new MediaCorp darlings Dai Yangtian and Joshua Ang.

Gepingplays a laundry store owner who blames Kym's character for causing his wife's death, while Kym plays a former national table tennis player.

In the scene filmed early this year, the two wake up naked in bed together after being drugged by the drama's baddy.

During filming, Geping wore a pair of boxers while Kym was in a pair of shorts and a tube top.

Hence my query above.

His reply? No, he didn't think it was necessary to wear 'double protection'.

But the daring one then got all red-faced like a shy schoolboy when he admitted there was physical contact between Kym and him under the sheets.

'The director initially wanted my arm to fall on top of her chest but aiyoh, her bust...' he drawled, hands moving to form the shape of a well-endowed bust.

Chuckling, he continued: 'She's 'grown' since the last time we worked in a period drama Strange Encounters III in 1994.

'So I looked at her chest again to see if she's had augmentation but her bust is real!'

He added: 'I don't think she wore a bra under her tube top...but I'm embarrassed to ask that. If not she'll wonder why I'm looking so intensely while filming!'

He added that he eventually requested to the director that his arm drop on Kym's face instead of her chest in case it made him look like a 'lao ti ko' (old lecher).

No time to be awkward

Despite the physical contact, Geping said there was no time to be awkward.

Everyone on set, he claimed, was laughing at how 'cartoon' they both looked during the particular shoot.

He couldn't describe how funny the scene was, only that we have to watch it to know.

Communication with the actress, he added, is the key to filming a successful, and rumour-free, bed scene.

'There's a lot of pressure on the actor to let the actress know what physical actions he'll be doing. There might be some 'accidents' when the camera starts rolling.'

Asked about what Geping had said, Kym laughed and said: 'I wore an enhancement bra, but there's no need to elaborate on that lah!'

She added: 'His eyes were big in the past, so everything he saw looked small. He's old now. His eyes have gotten smaller and so things appear bigger!'

The petite actress, who used to weigh 52kg, said she had recently lost more than 6kg.

Add to that the intensive workout from her table tennis lessons, she lost another 2kg and weighed a mere 44kg when filming began.

However, she revealed that her boyfriend disagrees with her current trim and toned figure.

'He scolds me because he thinks I'm too small, I don't have a butt and look like a man now,' she said.

Now at 47kg, she's eating more to fatten up.

Not that she needs to worry - besides appearing on Bryan Wong and Cavin Soh's makan show Where The Queue Starts 3, Kym will also soon host a sequel to her hit foody programme Buzzing Cashier.

This article was first published in The New Paper.