With their shared experience of being singers who’ve stepped into the acting world, Thapthimthong and Manobal noted that one of the challenges they faced was maintaining the mindset of their characters throughout a shoot.
“I feel like there is a degree of acting when I sing…But it’s still different from ‘acting acting’ because in ‘acting acting’, you’re jumping in the shoes of someone else for the duration of that whole shoot, instead of a three-minute song,” said Thapthimthong.
“You have to keep the same character. So there are definitely challenges in that. But there are ways [of overcoming them] like reminding oneself ‘Who are you?’, ‘What’s happened in this scene?’ or ‘What’s happened before this scene?’ so that you can make the energy and story continuous through your character.”
Manobal then chimed in, sharing her experience: “For me, the challenge was [thinking] if Mook was in this situation, how is she gonna react or [what is she going to] say to Gaitok – and not just [thinking about what] Lisa [would] usually say.”
“But we had our Thai director who helped us shape [the characters],” she added.
According to Manobal and Thapthimthong, this director would also ensure that Mook and Gaitok communicated using the right form of speech.
Quoting the director, Manobal recalled: “‘Mook is really close to Gaitok, so don’t say ‘ka’ (a sentence-ending particle to indicate politeness in Thai). Please take it out.’ And I’m like ‘Oh yeah, I forgot.’”
She added: “Usually, I talk to [Thapthimthong] the polite way. So I always say ‘ka’ to him. But on set, I sometimes forgot that I’m Mook and he’s Gaitok.”
