Selected for Sundance Film Festival 2024 and SXSW 2024, Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s moving, gently comic collaboration is about the power of live theater to make sense of our offstage dramas and personal narratives. Ghostlight centres on Dan (Keith Kupferer), a melancholic middle-aged construction worker grieving a family tragedy. Cut off from his devoted wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and talented but troubled daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), Dan finds comfort and community in a misfit company of amateur actors. While moonlighting in a low-rent production of Shakespeare’s most protean tragedy, Dan is forced to confront his buried emotions. Real-life family Mallen, Kupferer, and Mallen Kupferer bring tenderness and authenticity to this poignant portrait, while Dolly de Leon — last seen stealing the scene in Triangle of Sadness — is hilarious as Dan’s irascible, improbable co-star.
With the fantastic dramedy Ghostlight coming to Australian cinemas on October 10, Nick L’Barrow had the chance to speak with actress Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness) about the strong connections she found within her character, how the theatre has evolved over her time as an actress, and finding healing through her art.
Nick: Dolly, it is genuinely such a pleasure to meet you! How are you going today?
Dolly De Leon: I’m doing great! I’m great! How are you?
Nick: I’m very well, thank you. This film is truly beautiful and moving, and you are fantastic in it. So, I’m very excited to chat about it with you today!
Dolly De Leon: Thank you, Nick. Thank you so much. I’m glad you loved it as much as we love making it.
Nick: I noticed during the credits that your name popped up as an executive producer. It made me wonder how you initially came on board for this film, and how you helped in the development of getting it made?
Dolly De Leon: Well, I really had nothing to do with how the film was developed. When they approached me with the material, it was already done. It was on the final draft. And they were looking for someone to play Rita.
Adam, who is my manager, is also Kelly’s [O’Sullivan, director] manager, so he suggested me and that’s how it started. They showed me the script, and I fell in love with her. I fell in love with Rita. I fell in love with the family.
It’s really such a beautiful, beautiful script. Especially because it talks about two topics that’s very close to my heart, and that’s – well, three topics! Mental health, family, and theatre. So, it was the perfect combination.
Nick: I feel what was so beautiful and moving about this story is seeing how art can be a tool for catharsis. I’m curious to know whether performing and creating art has been a way for you to find emotional catharsis or healing?
Dolly De Leon: You know, there’s a special relationship that I have with acting. Every production that I’ve done has always served like a healing mechanism for anything that, not just for what I’m going through at that particular moment, but for my general wellbeing.
And that’s what happened here. It definitely happened with Ghostlight. Because Ghostlight happened on my first year working outside of the Phillipines, not counting Triangle of Sadness, because that was done in Sweden. This was like, literally a Hollywood film, you know? It was my third film, but working with Alex and Kelly, it still felt very new to me, because it was my first year and that was very special to me.
But, because it was my first year, I was also very scared. I was terrified because I was working in a new environment. But, working with Kelly and Alex, who are so loving and so encouraging that they really made the job easy for me to navigate. And that was the healing part for me, working with Kelly and Alex. I’ve worked in all kinds of environments, all kinds of film sets, and theirs is really special. That played a big part for me, because it was like saying goodbye to the past of mine of being a struggling actor. Rita was a way for me to do that.
Nick: Having had experience in the theatre like you have, how important is a story like this that highlights local community theatres, and how much it can impact both the people who partake in the theatre group, but also the people who see the hard work that gets put into these productions?
Dolly De Leon: What was really special about Ghostlight was working with other theatre actors from another part of the world. The entire cast, the entire group, the community theatre that we had, all of us are from the theatre. But the even with the difference of some were from Chicago, or that I’m from the Philippines, we all shared that same collective love and passion for the theatre.
We were really like our own special, small theatre community. Just like the Kupferer’s were a real family, we were a real theatre group, although we don’t really belong to the same group outside of the film. It felt the same because we all spoke the same language, we all had the same passions, we have the same discipline. We approached work, basically more or less, in the same way. That was really something else. It was a unique experience.
Nick: One of my favourite scenes was when Dan first sees this group doing the theatre warmups, and he doesn’t really know how to react to what he is seeing with all the actors just losing their inhibitions and doing these funny things. But it made me curious to know what your process is like when you’re acting as an actor. Is it more liberating and fun to be able to let loose in a role where Rita is in fact an actor, just like you are?
Dolly De Leon: Oh, it’s so liberating. With everything that I do, with every project that I do, I have a basic foundation for my process. And then once I’m on set, that’s when my process adjusts to everyone else. Because you’re working with a different group of people who have different processes, especially the filmmakers. So, that’s a big adjustment.
With Kelly and Alex, there really was no major adjustment on my part. I just went in there and had fun with it. It was so collaborative, and so hands on. We did our own hair and makeup in this film! There was no third party doing it. It was just me doing Rita. So, Rita doing herself, in a way. That was another really special element of this set.
Nick: A big part of this story is how Dan connects to Romeo and Juliet in such a strong way. I’m curious to know what role fiction has played in your life. Has there been a movie, or book, or play that you felt you’ve really connected to?
Dolly De Leon: I mean, it’s going to sound like a bad analogy, because a person assassinated John Lennon after reading this, but Catcher in the Rye really had a huge influence on me. I read that in high school, which was kind of the age of Holden Caulfield. So, that book had a huge influence on me.
Everything I read has an influence on me at the particular time I’m reading it. I mean, even Bram Stoker’s Dracula had a huge influence on me, you know? I waned to be a vampire when I was in my late 20s [laughs]!
Also, recently, I think the book I last read was It Ends with Us, even before they started thinking of making the movie. That’s how long ago I read it! And I love non-fiction because there’s so many lessons to be learned from the books that we read, and that we’re not along in the things that we do.
Nick: There’s an interaction that Rita has with Dan in the film where she mentions the days where you would be forced to kiss people in auditions, or that you couldn’t even get an audition if you were too old. As someone who has spent so much time in the theatre, how have you seen this industry evolve with the introduction of people like intimacy co-ordinators? Or even how opportunities have changed to be more accessible for actors?
Dolly De Leon: Oh, it’s evolved a lot. It’s really changed a lot. I don’t ever recall working with an intimacy co-ordinator, at least where I come from. It only happened very recently.
It’s funny how this small theatre group [in the film] doesn’t have any money, but they find ways to provide for the needs of the company. And I think that’s a really important message that we need to spread around. That we need to take care of our people by providing the resources. And by resources, I don’t mean food and costumes and sets. What we really need is to feel safe on set.
I think it’s also trying to say, at least in my own experience, that no matter how different you are, if you feel like an outsider, or if you don’t fit it, you have a seat at the table. And if you don’t, then build your own table. I think that’s a really huge message of the film.
There are outsiders. Even Keith [who plays Dan in the film], is an outsider in his own family. He’s the one who’s having the hardest time dealing with his grief. He doesn’t know how to approach his grief. So, no matter how different you think you are, or if you think you are alone, you’re really not. You have people who are there who are just loving you so much, and wanting the best for you, and want to help you. It’s all about reaching out and asking for help.
Nick: I think that’s a beautiful way to wrap up out chat, Dolly. Thank you so much for taking the time. This movie is incredible, and I love you as an actor. I’d be remised if I didn’t mention how much I love Triangle of Sadness!
Dolly De Leon: Thank you, and thank you so much for making this fun. This was a fun interview!
Nick: I appreciate that very much. I hope we get to do it again soon!
Thank you so much to Dolly for her time, and to Vendetta Films and TM Publicity for organising the interview. Ghostlight is in cinemas from October 10.
