A version of this story about Dolly De Leon first appeared in editing awards preview from TheWrap Awards Magazine.
Spoiler alert: This article looks at the events at the end of the “Triangle of Sadness” plot.
It’s not until the 95-minute mark in Ruben Östlund’s comedy “Triangle of Sadness” Dolly De Leon appears on screen. De Leon plays Abigail, a middle-aged “bathroom manager” on a luxury yacht, and we first see her inside a large orange lifeboat. Disoriented, she has appeared on a deserted beach, already inhabited by a few other survivors of the yacht, after the ship sank.
Except, actually, the lifeboat scene isn’t the first time we’ve seen Abigail in the film, which is key to Östlund’s performance art: she’s present during the second act aboard the yacht. “But when you’re watching the movie, you’re like, ‘Oh, she cleans toilets, she’s obviously just a background actress,'” De Leon explained to TheWrap, smiling as she puffed on a vaporizer. “And then all of a sudden she’s on the island and she’s going to be interacting with these people who have never noticed her. It’s such a special element that Ruben put into the story.”
It turns out that Abigail is the only castaway who knows how to fish or make fire. And so, the bathroom cleaner on the yacht becomes the captain of the island, as Abigail abruptly announces to the others. And a minor character so far becomes a major protagonist at the end of the story. It’s a storytelling technique more common in literature, but one that here nicely reflects De Leon’s own experience of discovery since “Triangle of Sadness” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last May.
Born and raised in the Philippine capital, Manila, she has been acting in the local theater and on television for more than 30 years, with roles in classic, deconstructed, and Philippine-adapted works such as “The Merchant of Venice,” “Three Sisters ” and “Waiting for Godot”. As a working actress, she has raised four children (the youngest is 10), “and I love acting and telling stories, but I’ve been slow and I’ve gotten used to maybe not getting rewarded a bit for my work.”
In 2019, De Leon overheard conversations among the acting community in Manila that Östlund wanted to audition Filipina actresses for a role in his next film. She landed a Skype audition with the Swedish director and then the role. Prior to shooting the film in 2020, Östlund engaged De Leon in various improv workshops.
“I did all my scenes with Ruben,” he said. “He’s a natural actor, actually. And he would always ask, ‘Would Abigail say it like this, would she raise this issue, would she behave like this?’ He wanted my feedback and to stick to the truth as much as possible.”
De Leon also faced the challenge of depicting an unconventional sexual relationship: Abigail takes a concubine in the form of the handsome young Carl (Harris Dickinson), but not just for laughs.
“Yes, it’s an older woman and a younger man,” he said. “People could easily think it was some kind of joke, so it was important for the audience to believe that Carl is the type of man who is drawn to power. And he wanted to add an element of sensuality to the power that Abigail wields, so that it makes more sense in the story. Carl sticks with her as a survival tactic, but he also finds her “her power” sexy in her.
The end of the film becomes a tremendous moment of decision for Abigail, teetering on the brink of killing someone or leaving them alive. Östlund is gone before we know it. “Oh wow, I get so many messages on social media about that,” De Leon said with a laugh. “People ask me, ‘Did she do it?’ It’s great because that means the movie wowed them, so I always say, ‘Well, what do you think happened?’ Say what they say, that’s what happened.”
After celebrating the holidays in Manila, De Leon is back in the United States. She had good reasons for making the trip. Her performance garnered her Golden Globe and London Critics Circle Film Award nominations, and she won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Supporting Performance Award, opposite actor Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once “).
“I can’t wait to meet Ke Huy Quan,” he said. “I’ve seen it since ‘The Goonies’ and ‘Temple of Doom.’ And the funny thing is, when I saw ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, at first I didn’t even know it was him. He is so amazing. And I have to say that he feels special, as Asian actors, that our work is recognized. It is an incredible honor and I am so grateful. We no longer feel invisible.”
Read more of the awards preview here.
