He Acts, He Sells Property, He Misses NS - Aaron Mossadeg On The Dream That's Fuelled By A Day Job
Aaron Mossadeg is, by his own admission, a dreamer. Conveniently, that’s also what he has in common with Jeffrey De Souza, his character in “The Sandbox”, a new Singapore film written and directed by James Thoo, now in theatres.
Shot mockumentary-style, the film follows a struggling stunt training school thrown into chaos when a rumour spreads that Marvel is looking for its next superhero in Singapore, sending a horde of hopeless wannabes through its doors. Aaron’s Jeffrey is one of them: clueless, ambitious and spectacularly blur.
“I am a dreamer,” Aaron says. “So, you know, I can be quite silly, and… sometimes I can be very unaware.” There’s probably a little more Aaron in Jeffrey than he would like to admit.
The 34-year-old has been acting professionally since 2014, after first appearing on screen at 15. He later added hosting to the mix and, this year, became a licensed property agent. That last move might sound like the moment an actor finally gives up on acting. It isn’t. If anything, Aaron has become more deliberate about the kind of acting work he wants to do.
More than a decade of trying to make acting work in Singapore
Aaron grew up watching local television – “Under One Roof”, “Spin” and “Moulmein High” among them – and seeing Singaporeans who looked like him making a living on screen.
“When I first started, things were a lot better in the industry,” he says, recalling a time when there were numerous Channel 5 shows and more opportunities across television and cable. “I was looking at people who looked like myself, and they were hosting on CNA, Discovery, AXN. And I was like, oh yeah, I’ve got a future in this line.”
The industry has since changed. Micro-dramas are now popular, the overall pie has shrunk and, as Aaron puts it, the rates aren't what they used to be. There have been moments of difficulty in keeping the passion alive. But the basic ambition remains.
However, leaving Singapore to chase a bigger acting market elsewhere was never the plan. “I don't want to leave my friends. I don't want to leave my family. The whole point was I grew up watching local TV. I want to make it work here,” he says, adding that he wants to make a concerted effort to push the local scene forward.
That makes “The Sandbox” particularly timely. It's his first film in a main role, and it gave him a chance to stretch himself as an actor.
Jeffrey is deliberately close enough to Aaron to be dangerous. "There are times when my friends are like, 'are you a himbo or something?'" Aaron chuckles. So he decided to lean into that side of himself for Jeffrey. The character is blissfully unaware of things that other adults seem to understand instinctively.
He cites Johnny Depp’s approach to playing different characters, explaining that he doesn't want to keep serving audiences the same thing. “If you’re always serving up meatloaf, the audience is going to get very bored,” he says, quoting Depp. “I try and find the biggest difference in myself and my character, and work on that,” he says.
Going into property for more freedom, not less acting
Aaron's property career isn't a backup plan for when the acting dries up. In many ways, it's the thing that allows him to keep acting on his own terms. He started studying for his property licence in October 2025 and got it in April 2026.
He's also a certified personal trainer, but had no desire to turn that into another full-time career. Property made more sense, partly because his family member had been investing in property since she was 24 and encouraged him to get his licence for years.
“Money gives you freedom. As an actor, as a realtor, of course I’m a lot more in control of my life and I have a lot more freedom,” says Aaron. “I want to keep that passion alive and not take on a job because I need it for finances. I want to be part of stories that I want, that I believe need to be told.”
That means being more selective. If he takes an acting role, he wants to believe in the director’s vision, the writing and the story. “I want to have 100% passion for doing it. If not, I won’t do it.”
This is where Aaron’s story takes a slightly unexpected turn. Because the part of his adult life he seems most sentimental about is the one in which he had almost no choice at all.
National Service gave Aaron something freedom can't
“In the army, I didn’t have freedom,” he says. “You kind of have to do whatever they tell you, right? … There’s a certain safety in there as well, because you don’t have a choice,” he says. “You just listen and you just do, and therefore, you free yourself up to find the things to be happy about.”
In the space of more than a decade of reservist cycles, Aaron found plenty to be happy about – especially the people. He describes reservist life as a sort of “fever dream”: the same faces, the same dynamics and the same jokes, even as everyone's lives outside camp changed.
From being an NSF (left) to MR-ing, NS taught Aaron how to tolerate discomfort, and to look beyond a person's civilian identity. | IMAGE: AARON MOSSADEG
“We stay in different parts of Singapore. We are in different industries,” he says. “Maybe our lives change in the year we've been apart – oh, you got married; oh, now you have kids – but when we get together, we immediately revert back to who we are as soldiers, as NSmen. The dynamic's the same.”
That is what makes the friendships different from those he formed through acting. In entertainment, people tend to gravitate towards one another because they have chosen similar careers and interests. In NS, you are thrown together with people you might never otherwise meet.
“There are people that you wouldn't be friends with if not for the army,” Aaron says. “You just don't have similar interests.”
Aaron (second from right, giving a peace sign) with reservist mates. | IMAGE: AARON MOSSADEG
NS forced them to spend time together – and eventually look beyond those differences. “We are not our jobs, right? We are human beings. And where we were [during reservist], our jobs didn't matter.”
Aaron says he knows some of these men's characters better than he knows what they actually do for a living. “There are so many conversations and moments that make you genuinely smile, genuinely laugh,” he says. “I'll definitely miss that. There's just something special, something magical [that only] reservist can offer.”
His goodbye to NS wasn't the one he expected
Aaron MR-ed rather abruptly. (“MR” stands for “MINDEF Reserve”, the point at which a national serviceman has completed his required operationally ready service and is no longer liable for further reservist call-ups.) During what he thought was a low-key cycle, he learnt it counted as a high-key one, which meant he fulfilled the requirements to MR. The watch and medal he received made the situation suddenly real: this was his last cycle.
The problem? He wasn't prepared to say goodbye. He had expected to see his friends at their MR parade, but he had already finished his service. So, when their Stand Down Parade came around, Aaron went back anyway – and put on his uniform.
Despite MR-ing the year before, Aaron (extreme right) returned in uniform to see his reservist mates at the 907 SIR Stand Down Parade on 2 Oct 2026. | IMAGE: AARON MOSSADEG
“I was going back to see them, and I wasn't going back as a spectator,” he says. “I didn't want that. I wasn't in the parade but I wanted to go back and be with them.” He stayed as long as he could, until people had started clearing out. For Aaron, putting the uniform on again was less about the uniform itself than having the chance to say a proper goodbye.
“Being a reservist or being an NS man has been my longest role to date,” he says. Technically, he might have spent only a couple of weeks a year in that role. But it lasted for more than a decade. And unlike acting, this was a role he never chose. Yet it gave him people he might never have chosen either.
However, given the chance to do another cycle, his answer is a firm “No”. The distinction matters. If he had been required to serve more, he says he would have happily put on the uniform and made the most of it. But volunteering to extend something that was over would change what made it special in the first place. "If you force it, it takes away the magic."
There’s something to be said for knowing when a chapter is over. That lesson has become increasingly familiar in the rest of Aaron’s life, too. An acting project ends. A show wraps. A relationship changes shape. A long-running role eventually comes to an end.
“I've gotten a lot better at saying goodbye in recent years,” says Aaron, who lost his mum in 2021. “It was a very solemn reminder that one day we're all going to die, and all we can do is just leave the world a better place than we found it. So, I'm trying to focus more on gratitude.”
When asked how he has learnt to let go, he quotes Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi”: “In the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go.”
“Change is the only constant,” he adds. “I’m not saying goodbye to acting just yet. But I have a lot more options now!”
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