Veteran Filipino actress Dolly de Leon lands the biggest break of her career and is gunning for an Oscar nomination to boot. The self-proclaimed late bloomer says this is only the beginning.

PORTRAITS Kevin Redder POLAROIDS Patrick L. Jamora

All eyes are on Dolly de Leon, the unexpected scene-stealer in Ruben Ostlund&rsquo;s Triangle of Sadness, a cutting satire slash disaster movie about the overpampered elite. The film made its world premiere at this year&rsquo;s Cannes Film Festival. In the wake of an eight-minute standing ovation, the film won the Palme D&rsquo;or.
De Leon is Abigail, the toilet manager of the movie&rsquo;s doomed super yacht. She barely makes an impression during the first two acts. But as Abigail upends the power dynamics of the third, it is impossible to look away as she calmly divvies up roasted octopus between those she wished to reward and those she wished to chastise.
When she takes my call, it was just days after she attended a special screening of Triangle of Sadness at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles. Organized by Neon, Goldhouse, and The Philippines Foundation, the event also became a beacon for all the Filipinx cinephiles in the area to rally around. A friend of mine was in that audience that night and she told me the Pinoys were in full force &mdash; they all cheered and laughed the loudest during the screening.
&ldquo;The Filipino community is unbelievably loving, giving, caring, generous. There&rsquo;s this belief that Filipinos have Crab Mentality. &lsquo;Di na &lsquo;ata totoo &lsquo;yon e.&rdquo; &ldquo;It is not, at all, what I felt here,&rdquo; de Leon says, this time louder and more pronounced.

&ldquo;I met Jonjon Briones, I met Eugene Cordero, I met so many Pinoys, so many&hellip;&rdquo; She lists the Filipino-American actors she met that night. She was moved by their offers to help her out with anything she could possibly need. &ldquo;You know I&rsquo;ve been here [in LA] for two months already. I am so homesick but when I met them, I felt right at home.&rdquo;
These aren&rsquo;t ordinary times after all. De Leon is the subject of Oscar buzz for Best Supporting Actress. All hands are on deck to campaign for the nomination and she&rsquo;s aware of what it will do for all of them in the entertainment industry. &ldquo;For [Filipinos], they see it as something that&rsquo;s good for the whole community, it&rsquo;s opening doors for everybody, it&rsquo;s putting [it] out there that we have so much to offer. So many stories to tell.&rdquo;
De Leon cares for stories, all the more for stories that involve Overseas Filipino Workers [OFW]. She is the daughter of an OFW, her mother worked as a housekeeper for over 30 years. &ldquo;I really worked hard on that, that [Abigail&rsquo;s] as real as I could possibly make her,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;As an actor, as much as possible, you always want to love the character you are playing, regardless of the good and bad choices that they make in the story. Never judge them ever.&rdquo;
She counts on her fingers the multiple identities Abigail had to embody. &ldquo;One, two, three, four, five! Five different identities! Minority group, woman, immigrant woman, Asian/Filipino, middle-aged! All of them are at a disadvantage, yes? Abigail has all those disadvantages.&rdquo;
&ldquo;That was the goal, to make her relatable. She&rsquo;s a real person. She&rsquo;s respectable and she is not the butt of jokes. That&rsquo;s the usual trope, especially with the creators of stories with Filipino immigrants, they make the accent the focus.&rdquo;

To take down the trope meant reexamining what a Filipino in the diaspora really sounds like. De Leon speaks with a Manile&ntilde;a accent. She says finding Abigail&rsquo;s literal voice was the hardest part of creating her character.
&ldquo;Abigail works in a yacht. Which means maraming port pinupuntahan &lsquo;yan. Hybrid sobra, iba-ibang nationality nakakausap niya. So 'yong accent niya hindi talaga traceable kumbaga &lsquo;di mo mahahalata kung taga-saan siya, Pilipinas or taga-saang part ng world.&rdquo;
Many things happened since the world premiere. De Leon&rsquo;s co-star and friend Charlbi Dean passed away a mere three months after Cannes. Her mother followed while she attended the film&rsquo;s premiere in London. She relays these losses to me, then with a twinkle in her eye, she regales me about the kismet of being able to see her mother for the last time at just the right time. And after that, with the same amount of love, I listen to her talk about how intelligent Dean was with the role of Yaya. It&rsquo;s not lost on her how much of an incredible season of life she&rsquo;s in, despite the grief.
In the midst of making the rounds of the awards circuits, she insists that everything still feels unreal. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in Hollywood, it&rsquo;s so weird. It&rsquo;s so weird that I&rsquo;m here. It&rsquo;s wild, and I&rsquo;m going to work here in March. I&rsquo;m in talks already with some people, you know, playing the stepmom of Jason Schwartzman, an evil stepmom.&rdquo;

&ldquo;As an actor, as much as possible, you always want to love the character you are playing, regardless of the good and bad choices that they make in the story. Never judge them ever.&rdquo;

She inhabits that unique space of being recognized from an indie film but still being able to go about her day walking down the street. I ask her if she wants that to change. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t because I really value my freedom. I want to be able to move around. The good thing about that is, if [change] happens, it means we&rsquo;re given a voice. And that would mean it&rsquo;s a perfect time and opportunity for me to spread joy and love. It sounds so corny but it&rsquo;s what I really want to do.&rdquo;
There already is a change that de Leon relishes, the quieter kind. There are more exciting scripts coming her way and with them, newer ways to dig into the human condition and expand her worldview. &ldquo;In terms of the essence of the work, there&rsquo;s a difference now. The essence of the work is more challenging, more meaningful, kumbaga mas masarap.&rdquo;
I tell her that I&rsquo;m done recording. When she sees me click the button, her eyes sparkle again, and she tells me what happens at the end of the movie. This was something I asked about earlier but we agreed not to put spoilers in this interview. She was waiting for this moment. We&rsquo;re transported back to the island, and I press her for what else was going on in Abigail&rsquo;s head. Words are flying a mile a minute.
We shriek with laughter, and I tell her that I would&rsquo;ve made Abigail do the same thing.

Scene Stealer: Dolly de Leon

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