Singapore directors may  not be quick to cast aside Zoe Tay, the queen of Caldecott Hill, but they are starting to write her into more domesticated roles as she gets older.

Such as in the new Mandarin serial La Femme, where Tay plays as a care-worn housewife to a curry puff businessman.

The series portrays her as slightly pudgy and haggard, hardly a glamorous role for the actress, who has graced many women?s magazine covers and was Singapore's first Lux girl.

But she says that she does not mind one bit. And she knows that as she gets older, it is character roles she will have to turn to in order to stay on TV screens.

"I want to be a versatile actress; not just a pretty face," says the mother of Brayden, 2, and Ashton, eight months old.

"At the beginning of my career, I was the leading lady," she says of her new turn in roles. "But as a character actress, you have to move on.

Tay, 40, was a Star Search winner in 1988, and broke through in 1991 with Pretty Faces. As Bobo, her Pretty Faces character, she was launched to stardom.

Motherhood, too, has tuned her into the domesticated roles that she is becoming accustomed to.

She works with young actors Ang Ching Hui, 14, and Jarell Ng Joon Yong, 7, who play her children in La Femme.

"When they call me mum, the feeling comes very naturally," she says.

"I don't have to deliberately put myself in someone else's shoes anymore. I also spend more time off the set talking to them so that when they go on camera, our onscreen relationship is very real."

La Femme airs on Channel 8 at 9pm from Monday to Friday. The first episode debuts tonight.

This article was first published in Mypaper on June 2, 2008.