Three actresses walk into a bar, or in this case, a swanky dining establishment in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The esteemed chef de cuisine cooks up a grand mise en scene in his station, the maître d’ ever so agile on her feet, but it is they who are serving, stealing the show. Siti Saleha, Jojo Goh, and Lenna Lim, between glasses of sparkling wine and plates of sizzling alfonsino, light up the dimly lit space with a conversation many would wish to be a fly on the wall for.
ACT I
Right off the bat, the actresses discover a career fact that they share as they look back on their journey thus far—none of them had intended to have their faces splattered across the screen, big or small. “There were a lot of these small plays back when I was in high school and I remember that I would always volunteer to be the narrator,” Lim kicks off the conversation. “I just felt so uncomfortable having to act on stage. It just felt strange,” she continues.
Lim then recalls telling her teacher who insisted that she take herself out of the backstage and into the spotlight that she would never go into acting. “I guess the moral of the story here is to never say never,” she jests, which prompts a hearty laughter from her fellow thespians. Goh, in particular, relates to Lim’s anecdote on a personal level as she admits to finding her own beginning within the four walls of her primary school’s classroom.
“I was always on the stage, representing the school in storytelling competitions and things like that,” she reminisces. “I think that helped me become more expressive. It kind of trained me to really munch and bite into every single word to try to get the juice out of it,” she shares. The exercise, which may seem inconsequential to some, taught Goh the basic principles of filmmaking: to effectively communicate the message to the audience.
It is the same lesson Saleha, who found her start starring in commercials, learned even though her television debut was somewhat marred by a miscommunication. “I don’t know about you but my first acting gig was so bad. I’m not going to tell you the title,” her face reddens at the thought of this unnamed production. This dread, however, has little to do with the project itself and more to do with her shortcomings as a performer.
“I went in for a casting, not knowing that it was for a musical, and they asked me to sing. I can’t sing!” she relives the experience. But despite her hesitance, which she expressed to the production team, Saleha booked the leading role. What she lacked in vocal range, she made up for in committed on- screen performance. Delivering a believable performance, to her, requires an understanding of the character that can only be attained with research and homework.
“It’s a beautiful process,” she responds to a question about her method of accessing her roles. “But I don’t expect to be one hundred per cent in character on day one. Just take your time immersing into the character,” she adds. It is the same practice Lim subjects herself to. To her, the work begins with script analysis and research to fully understand the story. Only after getting the big picture of the story will she focus on the details of her character.
Lim shares that she even has a little ritual that she does before stepping on set. “I am really into music, which is mostly due to my academic background,” she says, noting that she learned early on that music plays an important role in telling a story. “For every character I play, I would find a piece of music—mostly instrumental—that suits the character, as music often helps me visualise and understand the character better,” she says.
“I like to choose a perfume for each of my characters,” says Goh after taking a beat. “It channels me, in a way, whenever I put it on. Like, this is how I want to feel about this character. Sometimes I would create my own concoction and it kind of draws me into the character a little bit more. It’s weird,” she blushes, then adds that she had the earthy attar oil, The Scent of Rain, on while filming a drama series that is coming out later this year where she plays a humanoid.
The role will showcase just how far Goh has come since her early days when she once had to take on a role without a script. “I had to write the dialogues for the character myself,” she recalls. The revelation causes audible gasps of disbelief from her listening peers, to which she responds, “What was I to do? I wasn’t given much choice.” But Goh took the challenge in her stride, applying the writing prowess she acquired from working in advertising, and came up trumps.
ACT II
The conversation naturally segues into the topic of progressing further into the craft, beyond acting. Goh doubles down on taking up writing as she admits to having a few stories in mind that she wishes to turn into screenplays. Saleha, on the other hand, expresses her interest in producing. “I want to be in control and being in the producer chair would give me that authority, allowing me to voice out (opinions) that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to as an actor,” she explains.
That being said, Saleha has never regretted taking any role. “Of course, there have been times when I receive repetitive scripts and characters but I have not regretted any characters,” she says pensively. That, however, does not stop her from going in on one particular role that she deems committed a ‘character mistake’. “I need to think twice before agreeing to act in a horror show because I had a really bad experience with it,” she teases.
“I was told by the production team I would be playing a ‘beautiful ghost’ but the director changed his mind at the last second and asked me to redo my makeup,” says Saleha, still baffled by the sudden switch up. So there she was, at four in the morning, with a sweeping white wig on, a set of long nails and a pair of horns glued to her forehead completed the look. “I didn’t care about how I looked. It’s because I wasn’t prepared for it and I don’t like being lied to,” she adds.
Actors getting the short end of the stick seems to be par for the course as Goh chimes in with her own unpleasant experience. She recounts the time when a production’s inability to implement proper security measures during principal photography, due to lack of funding, put her life in jeopardy. “The director actually asked me to run across the road amid a stream of traffic. It’s a very dangerous act if you ask me,” she contemplates in retrospect.
“He and I talked about it years later and he realised that he shouldn’t have made me do it,” she adds. “But it wasn’t entirely his fault. I was game. I guess we were just swept up in a collective energy. We were feeling that rush,” she looks back. The present-day Goh would not stand for such a compromise.
Unlike the grievances of Saleha and Goh, Lim’s career qualm—not a regret per se—is internal. It has a lot to do with her understanding of the job itself. “A lot of my acting was based on pure imagination. I would imagine what the character would look like, what she wears, and things like that,” she recalls. “But I have learned that in order to play a role well, you have to become the character; to think what she thinks and to walk in her shoes to really understand her,” she says.
The switch-flip happened the same time she signed on to The Noise, her sophomore project. It was then that felt she was able to properly sink her teeth into a role. “She still remember this one scene where I had to say goodbye to my lover. I couldn’t stop crying even after the director yelled cut,” she shares, reliving her on-set experience. “It was at that moment that I began to wonder if that’s what all these professional actors meant by ‘living in the character’,” she adds.
Saleha, listening attentively, shares her own breakthrough moment. “I did a drama series called Nora Elena for TV3 and it left a huge impact on me,” she says. Playing a rape survivor whose future is thrown into limbo as her past catches up to her, Saleha turned in a full-bodied performance that ran the gamut of emotions from profound despair to poignant elation. “I surprised myself. Watching the show, I couldn’t believe that I did all those things,” she beams with pride.
Goh, on the other end of the spectrum, is more pragmatic in her assessment. She attributes her growth to no specific undertaking. “It happens gradually. I cannot say there’s a role that changed me overnight. There is no such thing,” she says. To her, it is about the collection of projects that come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. “It’s almost like wisdom. You accumulate a few roles and without realising it you just feel like you get it,” she elaborates.
ACT III
Experience, as Jojo alludes, is indeed the best teacher. The years go by and the actresses crave for parts with enough meat for them to gnaw on, signalling a maturing taste in projects. Saleha, for instance, yearns to see more women-centric films. “I want to be a part of a project with a women-led lineup because what we see on television today is mostly a regurgitation of the same idea of the challenges that women supposedly face in life,” she says.
“Let’s dive deeper into the psychology of it all, the broad range of emotions of a woman,” she expands. Saleha, who got to flex her acting muscle in That Cover Girl, a six-part series that documents the rise and fall of a woman in power, just last year, goes on to applaud English filmmaker Emerald Fennell for her work in Promising Young Woman. “The movie tackles the theme of sexual assault and she made the story so captivating, with such a good ending to boot,” she adds.
“Christopher Nolan’s Memento has a special place in my heart,” says Lim, joining Saleha in expressing adulation for their comrades. Professing her inborn inclination for genre films, especially sci-fi and psychological thrillers, Lim sends a clear message about the kind of stories that she wishes to tell. “I did a mini-series in the same vein before but it is not enough!” she exclaims.
Goh swiftly chips in on the topic and names Tilda Swinton as her screen hero, noting her impeccable taste in movies. She, however, chooses to be realistic and understands that it would be impossible to replicate Swinton’s filmography given the variety of stories, or the lack thereof, available to Asian performers.
It is the realisation that leads to her openness akin to an empty canvas. Goh, for starters, is not hung up on surface-level detailing of a character. “As long as I get to peel human beings layer by layer because that’s what this job is all about,” she says. “To dive deep into the thick of our emotions, studying what’s happening in our head and how it works against or for the society, is way more interesting than, say, the profession of the character,” she explains.
Acting is more than just playing pretend. It holds up a mirror onto which a reflection of society is laid bare. “It allows the audiences to see themselves in you,” she expresses articulately. “We are representing hundreds and thousands of people out there who probably share similar experiences. That is the beauty of it,” she says, adding that it could also be a healing process for both the actor and the viewers, making it a thoroughly rewarding endeavour.
“It just feels amazing to see the story you’re telling actually making a difference in the world,” adds Saleha, who is constantly curious about audience reception with every project she signs up for. “But it is not like I am trying to fish for compliments or anything. It’s more like, I am taking on this role, that’s the end result, and I feel good about it,” she elucidates, letting her fans in on the secret to her longevity, having been in the industry for over a decade.
Saleha, Goh, and Lim are the entertainment industry’s cream of the crop and it is easy to see why. Ever so agile in balancing between prestigious projects and commercial fares—a strong social media presence only adds to the stars’ bankability—the three actresses have established themselves as the new guards whose impeccable taste promises the audience an exceptional while, be it in the vastness of the theatre or the intimacy of the living room.
Photography: Ng Joe Ee
Creative Direction: Sarah Chong
Hair: Keith Ong
Makeup: Sharman Yee, Crystal Fong
Photography Assistant: David Choo, Zachary
Location: Nadodi Kuala Lumpur
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