Dolly de Leon —CONTRIBUTED Photo
Golden Globe nominee Dolly de Leon said she made sure to physically prepare for her role in the satirical black comedy “Triangle of Sadness” because its Swedish director, Ruben Ostlund, is known to do 95 takes of one scene in most of the movies that he makes.
“When they cast us, the pandemic happened and they had problems with financing, so I had two years to prepare,” said Dolly during her first public appearance since she returned from a six-month stay in Munich, Germany, to work on the second season of “Nine Perfect Strangers,” with lead star Nicole Kidman.
Dolly participated in a two-hour master class with Broadway star Lea Salonga to promote the stage play, “Request sa Radyo,” a strictly limited engagement with 20 performances that will run from Oct. 10 to Oct. 20, at Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati City.
She is the first Filipino to get a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress for her performance in “Triangle of Sadness.” She plays Abigail, a toilet manager on a cruise ship who gets stranded on a deserted island.
“For that film, I was able to talk to a lot of OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) who are based in Sweden. I met Filipino women, not just domestic helpers, but also teachers, nurses, physical therapists and masseuses. My mom was an OFW, so I know what it was like for her.”
However, Dolly said her mom’s experience offered a different perspective, “because she was a donya (rich woman) who became an OFW. Abigail, on the other hand, really started from poverty. That was the big challenge. Another big test for me was finding the voice, because of the accent. I didn’t want her to sound like the usual trope that Americans make of Filipinos who live abroad—the funny-sounding accent, which is not our sound at all. It was a challenge for me to find a voice for Abigail that would not be offensive to our workers abroad. They are 1.9 million. I didn’t want them to get angry [with me].”
Physically demanding
Dolly also said that part of Ostlund’s skill set requirement was that the actor to play Abigail should know how to swim. While Dolly said she could swim, she was convinced that the role would be physically demanding. “What I heard about him was that he would do about 95 takes of one scene. So for that important scene in the film, they put me in a tent, took off all my wet clothes, blow dried them, patted me dry with a towel, had me put on a new set of dry clothes, blow dried my hair, and then put me back in the water. Luckily, we only did this eight times, but still, that was a lot,” she recalled.
Part of Dolly’s preparation, since she already anticipated that there would be swimming, was to work out using a treadmill. “I’m ashamed to say that I don’t work out, guys. But for this, I did, for 30 minutes a day, every day, because I knew I needed the stamina for this very demanding director. It was more of a physical preparation than anything else,” Dolly said.