Amazing grace

When you think of TVB artiste Grace Chan, you often go back to her pageantry beginnings, but her interest in the media industry started much earlier than that.

Before she was crowned Miss Hong Kong in 2013 and Miss Chinese International in 2014, the Vancouverite was a communications major at Simon Fraser University.

"When I was younger, I was more introverted. I didn't expect to be in front of the camera as much as I am these days," said Chan.

"I also did not expect to go on Miss Hong Kong and then join the industry. If I hadn't won, my fallback would probably have been to do something related to reporting, because I love to write and that was also what I studied at university. I am also very interested in human stories. I feel like there are so many experiences that people can share."

So when the opportunity arose to host her own talk show, she seized the opportunity.

"It started with Pearl wanting to do their own original programming," said Chan. The plan was to create a dating show, but it was scrapped as Chan found it to be a mismatch to her being happily married.

Drawing on her fondness for human-interest stories, Chan suggested a talk show revolving around the theme of love.

"Love doesn't have to be one-dimensional, of two people falling in love, dating and getting married. It can be about family love, friendship, losing love and death. It can be about all sorts of things," said Chan.

"That is why we did this show, so that we can present love in a multidimensional light."

As a coproducer of the show, Chan was more hands-on in its development and coordination, giving her more freedom of content and choice of guests.

"I mean, usually you could just show up and everything would be handled."

Chan and her team had decided on broad topics they wanted to explore, but ultimately it was down to Chan to be quick on her toes, as she may have to change the interview direction and angle depending on what her guests are comfortable with sharing.

Coordinating her guests' schedules and the locations was also a new challenge.

"We weren't filming only one episode per day, so I would always have to make sure the locations weren't so far from each other."

She recounted her experience filming an episode on a boat when it started to rain.

"It was actually the episode with my brother. We waited for an hour and a half, but we had burgers and were chilling, so it was fine. But circumstances like that are not under your control, so you just have to make decisions on the spot."

Chan was also involved with the final cut, giving her a taste of production and editing. "We had an issue where a lot of the fun parts were cut out because they were not relevant to the topic, but I wanted to preserve them so in the end we did a small bloopers reel at the very end of the show."

Love Matters with Grace marks Chan's return to television after the birth of her two sons, although it is in a different form from her previous success as an actress. She admitted that she was worried audiences would find her lacking in what it takes to be a talk-show host, and that this would put the show in a negative light. "But at the same time I thought this is an English show, which I have never done before, so maybe it might work out," she said. "Maybe I am in a different stage of my life where the things that people say don't affect me as they used to. So I was like: Why not?"

While Chan was not be able to choose a favorite episode, she said: "One episode that I have not talked about that much and I really enjoyed was the one about losing love."

Her guest was a friend who was a former prisoner and now a youth pastor. The episode touched on themes such as the loss of freedom, identity and a friend who passed away during his incarceration.

"There were a lot of emotions that went into the episode, but the point of an episode like that is not to say life is sad." Rather, she said, it is about facing life's unexpected circumstances and how to grow from them.

"The reason we expanded to so many topics is that we hope at least one of them will touch your heart. Not all of us are married, have dated online or have the confidence to love ourselves, but hopefully there is something that clicks and resonates with you."

The 12-episode series is airing at 9pm every Wednesday on TVB Pearl.

+2