How Dolly de Leon battled loneliness while filming in Munich

De Leon during rehearsals for “Request Sa Radyo” in New York —CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

While Golden Globe nominee Dolly de Leon was grateful to have landed a role in the second season of the American drama series “9 Perfect Strangers,” she admitted that she also had to battle loneliness and homesickness as she worked on it for six months in Munich, Germany.

“I didn’t know anybody. You make new friends, meet new people, but that’s nothing compared to being with people you are so used to having in your life. They’re not there,” she said.

“In Munich, everything is closed on Sundays, so people would be shopping for supplies during Saturdays. Not all shopkeepers are able to speak English, so communication is a major adjustment, too.”

The seven-hour time difference between Manila and Munich proved difficult for De Leon as well. Whenever she returned to her temporary home after shooting, she didn’t have anyone to talk with in Manila because they’d already be sleeping.

“It was like that for six whole months. I had to unwind on my own. My kids could talk with me only early in the morning,” she recalled.

Communicating in English all the time was also hard, she said, laughing. “Ang sakit sa ulo! My Tagalog words would come out sometimes. For example, I would say, ‘I was able to watch the movie last night. It’s a really good one, ‘di ba?’ Everyone would be confused and I’d have to explain what it means.”

Even walking alone on the streets of Munich, which De Leon said isn’t much of a tourist spot, was a trigger for homesickness. “There are hardly any foreigners there. After a while, I stopped looking at the people around me whenever I was out for walks. I didn’t want to see their facial expressions because they would always make me feel small. What I did was, I acted like a local, like I’d been living there for a long time,” the actress said.

“It’s a really lonely experience. This is especially true for OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) who have to spend years in a foreign land and are unable to return home whenever they want to.”

Dolly de Leon

Coping mechanism

To cope with the loneliness and homesickness, De Leon admitted she would resort to drinking sometimes.

“Honestly, I drank ‘till I got drunk, although I couldn’t do this every night because I needed to be okay the day before a job. Sometimes, since I was also able to make real connections with people there, I would invite them to my place. Since I love watching TV shows, I recently started watching ‘Yellowstone.’ I also read and played video games. Those were my outlets,” she told Lifestyle.

It helped that she made friends with fellow cast members, like British actor Henry Golding. “I think we connected because we’re both of mixed nationalities—he is Eurasian. Of course it’s not true, but we would often joke that people are racist because we’re brown. We bonded with this kind of humor.

“I appreciated that he doesn’t behave like he’s a celebrity. He doesn’t walk around knowing he’s good-looking. He was never afraid to look ugly or silly. He’s super cool and funny,” De Leon said.

Although lead actress Nicole Kidman was in Munich for just a short while, De Leon said she learned a lot from being able to observe the Australian-American actress at work.

“As a scene partner, she always gives something different after every take. There’s nothing predictable about her attack as an actor. I prefer that because I get more stimulated as an actor myself. Off-cam, she was super sweet, friendly and very warm. She was kind to the crew,” she added.

The first thing De Leon did when she came home was to snack on buffalo wings, her all-time favorite dish. “They don’t have it in Munich, where you can find mostly Bavarian food,” she recalled, adding she also immediately kept herself busy fixing things at her family’s new house. “It had already been a month since our transfer but I still had a lot of stuff to unpack. It was really mostly adjusting to the new place, and hanging out with my kids,” she shared.

Celebrity status

De Leon said her four kids are pretty much aware of their mom’s newly acquired celebrity status, although the youngest, who is only 11, still feels awkward about it.

“One time, before leaving for the mall to eat, she asked, ‘Mommy, what if they recognize you? Shouldn’t you be wearing a mask?’ I think she is more concerned with our time getting interrupted at dinner. My eldest and my second are used to it by now. When someone approaches to have photos taken with me, they would automatically try to fix my hair,” she said.

Prior to leaving for Munich, she told reporters that she would be taking a break from work once she is done with the series, but everyone was surprised when publicity materials for “Request sa Radyo” started coming out weeks before her scheduled return to Manila.

De Leon said “Request sa Radyo,” which runs Oct. 10 to Oct. 20 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati City, was something she had agreed to do even before she got really busy with projects abroad.

“Doing plays is not work. It’s really what I love to do. Clint (Ramos, producer and creative director) and I have long been talking about this project,” she said of the local adaptation of Franz Xaver Kroetz’s landmark theatrical piece that, coincidentally, also talks about a woman’s loneliness and yearning for connection.

It was during this part of the interview that we told De Leon how noticeably different her personality is from Tony Award winner Lea Salonga, who will also play the solo piece in scheduled alternating performances. For De Leon, this is a good thing.

“I think the show would be boring if Lea and I are so alike. It will be special because we will offer two different approaches. This is why it’s worth watching both,” she explained.