Filipina actor Dolly De Leon relates closely to her frustrated community theatre actor character, Rita in Ghostlight Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s tale of grief and healing. If not for Triangle of Sadness which saw Dolly garner BAFTA and Golden Globes nominations, she’d be a version of Rita. Perhaps less likely to punch people – but a working ‘background’ player with years of experience but only local industry reach.
Dolly speaks to Nadine Whitney about the joys of acting, empathy, ageism, and keeping her feet on the ground after her ‘overnight’ success.
Ghostlight is in Australian cinemas now through Vendetta Films
I thoroughly enjoyed Rita. She is an amazing character. Kelly O’Sullivan said to me that she is like another Shakespeare character – Hermia in A Midsummer’ Night’s Dream who is described thus: “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
Dolly De Leon: That’s true, small but terrible. (Laughing) Small but terrible.
How did it feel punching someone in the face? [For clarity Rita punches an obnoxious scene partner who refuses to kiss her as Juliet because she’s too old and… well… he doesn’t want to kiss someone who is “like fifty.”]
DDL: Oh, it felt good. It gave me the best kind of satisfaction. Oh my gosh, to be to be treated with discrimination because of your age. Oh, wow, yes, that’s the perfect time to punch someone in the face.
Rita tends to punch people in the face. She’s got a reputation for taking no crap.
DDL: Yeah, she has anger management issues, just like Dan (Keith Kupferer – the construction worker who joins the amateur production of Romeo and Juliet).
She’s also emotionally intelligent. She’s the person who picks up almost immediately that Dan needs some help and brings him into to the theatre space.
DDL: I think that that that’s because she’s an actor, and actors are very intuitive when it comes to that. Well, I like to think that we are intuitive when it comes to that. We’re very sensitive about our surroundings, particularly the people around us, and we’re very… I don’t want to go so far and say we’re empaths. I like to think that we’re empaths, but really, we absorb and feel people when they’re going through joy or grief or anger or sorrow. And I think that’s what Rita had. That’s why she was able to see that Dan could make a really a good addition to the group. Because he needs to find a way to speak. He thinks that he has lost touch with his feelings, but actually he just has a lot of pent up anger inside of him.
He does. But I think too, that he does feel deeply.
Can you tell me a bit about how you prepared to play Rita?
DDL: Well, primarily, I sat down with Alex and Kelly and talked about her. We established how long she’s been struggling as an actor in the United States when she migrated and tried her luck. So, it was really more of finding out her past. Starting from the very beginning and finding out what her past is, and what’s it like to give up on a dream and to pursue something else, not your dream anymore, but more of pursue what you really love to do.
It was really more of coming from the human angle of what if? What would it be like to live the life of a person whose dreams never came true and who’s had to learn to accept the fact that this is all there is. And I think that’s really where all her anger comes from, the frustration of not being able to be accepted in a in a community that is so demanding of people, she couldn’t even play Juliet when she was at the right age, because she was already being judged by how she looked and how she presented herself.
You’ve got a long, career in in the Philippines, but your career in America has gone the other way to Rita’s – in that with a single role, you’ve become a massive success. Now Dolly De Leon is everywhere. How does that feel? To have worked all these years in the Philippines but then to now have international name recognition.
DDL: It’s really strange. It’s a strange, strange feeling. Because all my life I’ve been used to just going to work, filming a scene or two, and then going home and crossing my fingers that I can watch what I just did today. So that was my life before. Just waiting and waiting for the job to come and when it would come, I packed my bag go to set, shoot the scene, maybe say one line or two, and just go on with my life. So that’s the life that I was used to.
It became strange when people started giving me attention, and in my head, I’m like, I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years, 35? 34? I’ve stopped counting now, Nadine. I think 34 years, and all of a sudden, you’re noticing me. I found it so strange. It was so it was odd. It only it took me two years to get used to that phenomenon, because it’s kind of weird.
It would be super weird. I’m not quite sure how you cope with this sudden fame. It isn’t as if Hollywood people routinely watch Asian or other regional television or small films looking for their next star.
DDL: Yeah, I don’t know how I cope. I cope, I think, by staying grounded with my kids, I have four kids. My friends, especially my friends from the same industry that I’m in, just being surrounded by people who keep me grounded were also the ones who helped me stay sane, because it can drive you a bit crazy, you know, because it’s so weird.
I have also been watching some of your Filipino work such as Carl Joseph Papa’s The Missing where you voice Rosalinda in the rotoscoped animation.
DDL: You saw that! Oh, gosh, it’s good! We shot that in live action. That wasn’t just our voices. Oh my gosh, that’s another job I’m so proud of. I love it when I do work that’s very necessary, especially in this day and age of with our mental health crisis. It’s like I’m doing something or giving my own contribution to society to hopefully make it more palatable or easier to live in, because it’s a crazy world.
That’s when I become really proud, and that’s when I become really happy about what I’m doing, when I’m doing a job that’s meaningful and hopefully helpful?
You’ve got Between the Temples as well, which also deals with grief and ageism and you’re playing a lesbian Jewish woman.
DDL: That’s right, Judaism is so cool. I mean, they accept homosexuality. Isn’t that so cool? I mean, not a lot of religions accept that. Yeah, it’s that one’s a very different part. She’s a control freak. So yeah, playing different part, parts that are so different from each other, that’s always fun to do.
I’d really like to dive into your background in theatre and how you brought that into playing a theatre actor.
DDL: It was really easy to do. That, because Rita is, is a big what if in my life. Like you said, what if Triangle of Sadness didn’t happen? I’d be Rita. I’d be Rita, you know, doing theatre and living in my town and doing theatre with people I love who also love the theatre and just staying there and doing that. But having a little bit of resentment about not being able to make it big enough to be able to pay for the bills, but still doing it anyway, because it’s what I love. That’s really, basically it. It was just looking at a big what if in my life. And I think that’s what acting is, well, at least to me personally; acting is a big what if.
In everything that my characters do, I always think, what if I were to convert to Judaism and marry a woman who already has a son, has a child, a kid who’s a grown up? What if I never made it in the in this crazy industry that we call show business, then I would be Rita. That’s just how I operate as an actor. And that’s who Rita is. She’s really a big part of me. Everything I play, they’re all a big part of me. If any other actor would have played these characters, they would be so different, totally different.
I don’t know how much Abigail you are. I mean, are you likely to hit someone over the head with a rock?
DDL: Probably not. Probably not. I would never do that, but I would definitely have an opinion. If I were to be stranded on an island with a bunch of rich brats, I would definitely have an opinion on how to run things, that’s for sure, but I would never hurt anyone.
I think Abigail hurts people. She does use that rock because that’s who she is. She’s very happy with her life there, and she can’t go back. She doesn’t want to go back. That’s the big difference between Abigail and Rita. Rita leads with love even if she hates some things about her life. She loves the theatre. She loves people. She loves connecting to people, and she’s empathetic to people’s needs. So that’s the big difference, and that’s what makes her really special.
She connects almost instantly with Dan’s daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer). Can you tell me a little bit about that?
DDL: I think that Rita sees Daisy as another ‘What if’ in her life. What if I were this talented? Because Daisy is really so much more talented than Rita can ever dream to be, and she’s able to tap into that talent at a very young age.
Daisy is very special to Rita. She sees a what if in her what if? What if I had been born with this much talent? What if she had a very supportive father, very supportive parents who want her to pursue her theatre trajectory. So, Rita is immediately smitten by Daisy. She instantly falls in love with her because she sees her as a huge part of the future, she’s like a hope. You know that kind of hope that Rita never saw in her own life?
Ghostlight is a beautiful film, and your work is stunning. The whole company is stunning.
DDL: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. But all of that wouldn’t have been possible without an entire team that’s behind all of us. We’re actors. We look good because of all these people behind us. The crew, especially Kelly and Alex, if not for their vision and their heart and their huge love and empathy towards humanity, this wouldn’t have happened. So, it’s really the work of an entire team.
You can see that and a family in the middle of it too. The three wonderful actors who are a family playing a family.
DDL: Tara Mallen, Dan Kupferer, and Katherine Mallen Kupferer, yes fantastic!
