‘I didn’t want to offend 1.9M OFWs’: Dolly de Leon most challenged finding ‘OFW accent’ for Golden Globe-nominated role
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ first British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and Golden Globe nominee Dolly de Leon shared her preparations for her international film that gave her the nominations, “Triangle of Sadness.”
In a talk recently in Samsung Performing Arts Theater, Circuit Makati for their upcoming play “Request sa Radyo,” De Leon and her alternate in the play, Lea Salonga, were asked by Tony Award-winning costume designer Clint Ramos about their career onstage.
When asked about her preparations for “Triangle of Sadness,” Dolly said: “I had two years to prepare for that because when they cast us, the pandemic happened and then they were having problems with financing and all that. So I had two years to prepare.”
While preparing for the role, Dolly was able to talk to many OFWs based in Sweden, neighboring country of Denmark, where the film was from.
“So I was able to talk to a lot of OFWs who are based in Sweden. I met some Filipinas and not just domestic helpers, (but also those in) telecom, teachers, nurses, physical therapists… So I was able to meet them and talk to them.”
According to her, what made her connect the most to her character and other OFWs abroad is being the daughter of an OFW.
“My mom was an OFW so I know what it was like but ibang perspective ‘yung nanay ko. ‘Yung nanay ko, donya na naging OFW. Si Abigail hindi naman s’ya donya na naging OFW, talagang grassroots ang start n’ya. She really starts from poverty. And that was the big challenge.”
She professed that another big hurdle was finding an accent and voice for Abigail.
“And the big challenge for me was really finding the voice. The accent. Kasi I didn’t like her to sound like the usual tropes that Americans make about Filipinos who live abroad, with this funny sounding accent because that's not really how you sound. So that was the biggest challenge for me to find a voice for her that would not be offensive to our workers abroad. And there are 1.9 million, ayaw ko namang magalit sila,” she professed.
“That for me was the biggest challenge and that was part of the preparation…”
Apart from these, she was required to be able to swim.
“I was told pa na part of the skillset was dapat marunong kang mag-swimming. Marunong naman akong mag-swimming… And I heard pa na hinihingi n’ya about 95 takes. Yeah, 92 to 95 takes of one scene. Ang pinaka-forgiving n’ya mga nasa 40s,” she said of “Triangle of Sadness” director Ruben Östlund.
For the “swimming” scene, Dolly shared, “They put me in a tent, took off all my wet clothes, bin-low-dry nila, pat me dry with a towel, put on another set of dry clothes, blow dry the hair, balik ulit sa tubig, pauli-ulit ‘yun. Pero eight times lang naman ‘yun. Eight times lang, but still, it was a lot!”
As preparation for the swimming, Dolly went on a daily treadmill exercise.
“Kasi, I’m ashamed to say, I don’t workout, guys,” she confessed.
“I really don’t! But for this, nag-treadmill ako for 30 minutes a day, every day, because I needed the stamina for this very demanding director. So it was really a very physical preparation than anything else.”
When asked by Ramos how was she able to handle doing her accent while doing something physically demanding like swimming at the same time, Dolly said, “I just trust in what I was trained to do in school and in all my experiences of being an actress. And you have to trust that you are equipped with all the tools to be able to deal with all of these crazy challenges.”
Lea then remembered a quote from her brother, musical director and orchestra conductor Gerard Salonga: “If under great pressure… you do not rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training.”
Commenting on Gerard's quote, Dolly said: “Ang ganda nu’n! Gawin nating T-shirt!” — Video by Deni Rose M. Afinidad-Bernardo; video editing by Martin Ramos
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