Soundtracked by the grass work nearby, Dolly de Leon stands on elevated ground under a canopy of trees, a common fixture of the University of the Philippines Diliman, her alma mater. She tries to land the perfect pose, despite the sticky post-Holy Week heat, a glaring contrast to the frigid, biting winds of the Swiss Alps, the backdrop of the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers, the Hulu crime thriller series she now stars in with Nicole Kidman. Power walking to the location, midway between the UP Film Institute Film Center and the Oblation Plaza, she humors the team, “Basa na kili-kili ko.”
She wears an ultra-casual look: white long-sleeve polo, black mini skirt, and Miu Miu penny loafers. When her stylist, Steven Coralde fixes her top, a butterfly coated in silver and white rests on her right shoulder. It marvels her. “Halika, bilis,” she motions to photographer Geric Cruz, ensuring that he captures the moment. Before long, the sunlight slides gently across her face and, like clockwork, she finds her angle and basks in the glow, as if she’s slipping into new personas, shot after shot. It’s beautiful — sweepingly and spontaneously so — that for a minute there, a part of the crew thinks she’s about to levitate. Later, she’ll lounge on blades of grass, vape in hand, like it’s nothing. The shoot flaunts de Leon’s commanding presence, as evidenced in every project she sinks her teeth into.
After her breakout turn in Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness — for which she earned the best supporting performance at the 48th Los Angeles Film Critics Awards, alongside historic Golden Globe and British Academy Film Awards nods — de Leon has been in go mode, leaping from one project to another.
She had two movies that screened at last year’s Sundance: Ghostlight, a modest drama about the healing power of theater, directed by real-life couple Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson; and Between the Temples, a comedy that finds her nagging her grieving stepson (Jason Schwartzman), a Jewish cantor struggling to sing who forges a romance with his former grade-school music teacher (Carol Kane). The New Yorker critic Richard Brody argued that de Leon should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the film. The 56-year-old actress also scored a role in Paul Feig’s action comedy Jackpot!
Locally, de Leon played another maternal figure in The Missing, Cinemalaya’s first animated feature directed by Carl Joseph Papa, which earned her Best Supporting Actress award. Then there’s Petersen Vargas’ blockbuster thriller A Very Good Girl, where she portrays Molly, a two-faced “mother,” opposite Kathryn Bernardo’s Mercy, who’s seeking payback for a tragic past. And a month ago, she just wrapped up filming Dustin Celestino’s latest Cinemalaya entry Habang Nilalamon ng Hydra ang Kasaysayan, following their collaboration in 2023’s Ang Duyan ng Magiting.
“We’re more or less the same type of actors. You know, we just want to work with really beautiful stories and collaborative directors, and work with other actors like us who are very passionate about our craft.”
We’re here in UP to discuss Nine Perfect Strangers, her first series outside the Philippines and first foray into prestige TV. “I was gone for six months, so medyo matagal,” she tells me when we head back to our holding area, in a low-ceiling, second-level room at the Bahay ng Alumni. “It was a very unique experience. Core memory ‘yon forever.”
She recounts working around snow for such a stretch of time. “Talagang nakaka-five layers [of clothing] ako,” she says. “But the adjustment was more or less [easy] kasi pareho lang naman ‘yong weather conditions sa Austria and Germany.”
The series, which became Hulu’s most-viewed original after it premiered in September 2021, is based on the Liane Moriarty novel of the same name. It tracks the story of nine urbanites arriving at a luxury wellness resort, where its Russian founder, Masha Dmitrichenko, played by Kidman, wreaks havoc on them. Still harnessing that cabin-fever premise, Kidman reprises her role for the second installment, starring alongside de Leon, Henry Golding, Murray Bartlett, Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Mark Strong, Lena Olin, Lucas Englander, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, King Princess, and Aras Aydin.
In the story, de Leon portrays Agnes, a former nun who enters the wellness retreat to nurse some pain, as with all the other characters, she says. “They go there to find healing. So it’s really mostly a journey of self-discovery and finding peace of mind through psychedelics and Masha’s therapy.”
While the actress is stingy with details, de Leon recalls in a Vogue Philippines interview how she threw herself into preparation. Although she’d been exposed to nuns since attending a Catholic school in her formative years, her research involved speaking with a close friend, Sister Mary John, a retired Benedictine theologian, and reading her book on religious adventures outside the Philippines.
“I had to really find out about what makes them tick and why they choose to serve God and join the convent,” she told Vogue Philippines. On top of this, she gave a little crash course to directors Jonathan Levine and Anthony Byrne, who are non-Catholics.
When asked about working with a high-caliber cast, de Leon says she “found a home in them.” “We’re more or less the same type of actors,” she explains. “You know, we just want to work with really beautiful stories and collaborative directors, and work with other actors like us who are very passionate about our craft.” Onscreen, de Leon evokes this singular magnetism that locks the viewer into her character’s wavelength. At times, it feels like she’s about to detonate something in us, like how her Abigail in Triangle of Sadness throws the movie’s nauseatingly pampered elite a curveball, though she’s also primed to defuse tense situations. Part of the pleasure of watching de Leon is simply not knowing what she has in store for us.
Maybe it has to do with her theater background; after all, since she entered UP, she was under the wing of local theater icons like Floy Quintos, Tony Mabesa, and José Estrella. Just last year, she alternated with Broadway star Lea Salonga in Request sa Radyo, the Filipino adaptation of the Franz Xaver Kroetz play, Request Concert. “I think I’ll always be a theater person,” she says, reflecting on her stage return after seven years. “It will always be my first love.”
Theater turns out to be the common denominator of the Nine Perfect Strangers ensemble. “Mark Strong just finished Oedipus Rex,” de Leon remarks. On set, she relished exchanging conversations with her costars about their beginnings and shared love for theater. Her favorite scene is the one with Bartlett, King Princess, and Richardson-Sellers in the show’s latter episode, where the four of them figure out how their time at the luxury retreat has changed them, for better or worse. As for the vexing part, she mentions a watershed scene in the confessional.
Before I can proceed to the next question, de Leon, now an Oscar Academy member, takes a pause and says thanks to Cruz as the photographer packs up and approaches the door. “Sarap niyo katrabaho, grabe,” she says.
Photographer Geloy Concepcion, who tags along during the shoot, asks for de Leon’s residence to send her a copy of his book. “Talaga, totoo ‘yan ha?” de Leon asks. “Gusto ko may autograph. Gusto ko malambing ‘yong dedication.”
“Isang page!” Concepcion replies, which sets the veteran actress off laughing.
Styling STEVEN CORALDE
Makeup MARK ANTHONY LORETO
Hairstyling RAVEN DIZON
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