Dolly de Leon’s Next Act: ‘Triangle of Sadness’ Breakout on Her Two Buzzy Sundance Films

variety.com:

Brent Lang Executive Editor Dolly de Leon realized she needed to say goodbye. The Filipino actress who landed on Hollywood’s radar last year with her turn in “Triangle of Sadness” as Abigail, a toilet cleaner who becomes the domineering leader of the pampered survivors of a cruise ship disaster, had become so deeply entwined with her character that it was starting to take a toll. “I was carrying Abigail for a long time,” de Leon says via Zoom from her hotel room in Germany, where she’s about to start shooting the Hulu series, “Nine Perfect Strangers.” “She was getting in the way, without me being even aware of it.

It was driving me a bit crazy.” But even as she struggled to turn the page on “Triangle of Sadness,” which earned her Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, de Leon moved seamlessly from one project to another.

At this year’s Sundance, she has two new movies, one a comedy and the other a portrait of grief, highlighting the different sides of Dolly.

In “Between the Temples,” de Leon plays the Jewish stepmother of a depressed cantor (Jason Schwartzman), who is suspicious about his relationship with a septuagenarian bat mitzvah student (Carol Kane). “She cares deeply about her stepson, but she just has a really weird way of showing it,” says de Leon. “She’s controlling.