“It was not fun. I missed my friends and school—and it’s not like I could send an email or text anybody,” Salonga recalled her life at the dawn of the ’90s when international telephone calls were expensive and what was reliable was snail mail that would take two weeks to receive. She also remembered having a fax machine in her apartment.

Her mother, Ligaya, whom we affectionately called Tita throughout the photo shoot, had been a constant loving presence in her early life away from home.

“I don’t think I could have handled any of that [without her],” Salonga continued in Tatler Talks, clarifying that she lived with her mum in London and New York during Miss Saigon. “In a brand new city without knowing anybody [from there] and no immediate means of communication, that could have caused a lot [to my health],” Salonga said.

On her own?

Having a support system mentally and socially, Salonga managed to fare the longing to see home again. After all, she was bound to do greater things. Miss Saigon landed on Broadway, Disney asked her to be the singing voice of its princesses Jasmine and Mulan, and released an international album.

What critics thought to be impossible for Filipino talents on the international stage, Salonga proved otherwise. She did not do this singlehandedly. The rest of the cast of Miss Saigon included other Filipino talents and continues to do so today.

More from Tatler: Beloved musical ‘Miss Saigon’ is set to arrive in Manila this March 2024

After being the first person of colour to portray Éponine in Les Miserables, many actors followed in her footsteps. Eventually, there was a rise in new musical productions accepting black, indigenous, and other people of colour (BIPOC) actors for roles traditionally given to Caucasians. Yet, she revealed in an interview for a foreign show that she knew there were people in the background, or the audience, just waiting for her to screw up. With grit and dedication, Salonga nailed her songs in Les Miserables every show. Still today, Salonga wishes for the theatre scene to be more inviting.

Miss Saigon, the show itself was daunting enough to scare the then-budding actor who grew up in a sheltered upbringing. However, experiencing the world through other projects slowly strengthened Salonga. She returned to Miss Saigon in her late twenties, and it felt lighter for her, and with a more mature understanding, she admitted in the Tatler Talks episode.

Love, look here

Just as Salonga was portraying Wu Mei-Li in the revival of Flower Drum Song, a Chinese immigrant character pursuing love among many other things, she met Rob Chien, an American entrepreneur of Chinese and Japanese descent. In 2004, the two tied the knot.

Salonga would continue to be present on the international stage as Fantine in Les Miserables (2007), Kei Kimura in Allegiance (2015-2016), Goddess Erzulie in Once on This Island (2017-2018, 2018-2019), and briefly as Aurora Aquino in Here Lies Love (2023). 

“It is quite a luxury to be able to look back, and it’s a range of things that I’ve done over a spread of so many years,” Salonga said as we sat down after the shoot. “Not a lot of people get to have this experience. Ageing is a luxury,” she said.

Related: WATCH: 5 Iconic Lea Salonga Performances We Can't Get Over

“I am grateful to look back and, at the same time, look forward,” she said. As being in the moment is one of Salonga’s methods in acting, which she effectively showcased for this particular shoot, the same thing applies to the timing of her roles when they came before her in certain stages of her life.

“If I did Kim [the first time] at a much older age, there would not have been a lot of innocence in how I have portrayed the character. It would be too knowing. There would have been too much life experience for what the role required of me at the time,” she explained. She believes that what she had done with the role was exactly what fit that particular age of hers and what needed to be seen by the audience in the year she premiered it.

“I guess you find yourself gravitating towards things that are right for you at that moment,” she said.

Salonga enthusiastically shared how much she loved stepping into the shoes of the Goddess of Love, Erzulie, who comes in with a lot of wisdom, and Mrs Lovett, who had lived a life and made certain questionable decisions to survive. The depth of these characters and others she performed recently have engrossed Salonga. 

In performing a diverse range of women throughout her career, Salonga has realised that being empowered means playing the “main character” of your narrative.

“There are roles, either in real life, in films or in television, where you’re the wife of someone… or the sister of somebody—always an accessory or an appendage to the main character. I’d rather be the main character,” she strongly expressed, smilingly. “And even in roles where I am just a feature, I make sure when I’m onstage, I am the centre of that production even for just five minutes.”

Her human heart

With her stellar career and accolades, many have placed Salonga on a pedestal, dubbing her as one with the ‘crystal-clear voice’, a pun made out of one of her iconic Disney songs. But for what keeps her grounded, Salonga humoured us by answering, “Laundry.” Jokes aside, Salonga knows that at the end of the day, she has duties to her family and herself.

“Knowing that I have to wake up at seven in the morning to make sure that my kid gets to school on time, being responsible for another human being still figuring out their way in the world,” Salonga said. “And also taking the responsibility of being the lead in a show, knowing the hard work that goes into doing productions,” she added.

The intensity of intricacy in building a musical theatre show or even a straight play humbles Salonga. “I know what it’s like to be in a rehearsal process, thinking that you did something really, really great, and then having a director or producer come to you and say, ‘you’re halfway there’. Then you’d start to think, ‘What do I need to do to get all the way there?’ Then, I have to remember that the rehearsal process exists for a reason. Know that you’re not going to get anything right the first time,” Salonga said.

The actor reiterated that rehearsals should be a safe space where one should get a license to make mistakes—permission to try things. “So there really is no such thing as failure,” Salonga said. “Because even, let’s say, something does not go right, that is already informative that ‘Okay, that’s not the direction I need to go in. I need to try something else,” she continued.

“If it means that that one moment leads you closer to success, then how can that one moment of failure be failure, if the result is triumph?” Salonga emphasised.

See also: 5 Fun Facts We Learned About Lea Salonga From Our March 2021 Tatler Talks

The ballad of Mrs Lovett

Despite the hustle and bustle of foreign productions and concerts in the Philippines and the United Kingdom, to name a few, Salonga managed to keep her ground on the local theatre scene. She portrayed the writer in God of Carnage (2012), Helen Beckdel in Fun Home (2016), and Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2019), among others.

Salonga had just returned from an exhaustive yet fulfilling 16-week run of Sondheim’s Old Friends, a West End musical revue produced by Cameron Mackintosh to honour Stephen Sondheim. Here, Salonga reprised her role of Mrs Lovett and sang other iconic Sondheim songs like Everything‘s Coming Up Roses and Old Friends.

Salonga loves challenging herself artistically. She refuses to regurgitate the same stuff over and over again.

“As to what keeps me going, there has to be a great love of it. It’s pointless if you don’t love what you do,” Salonga shared. She further described that a new project she would be part of should be something that excites her, looking forward to even just the first day of rehearsals.

To sustain this passion for her profession, Salonga strongly believes that self-care is vital to one’s well-being. “You can’t pour out of an empty cup,” she said. ”You take care of yourself to take care of other people, to do your job well.” Personally, Salonga finds her work physically demanding. Subtly confessing her introverted personality, the actor spends her day off by sleeping it off, giving in to her food cravings, having a glass of wine, keeping her oral communications to a minimum, putting her feet up to play video games, and being incommunicado until the next day she has to get back to work.

With her closest friends and family aware of the actor’s protectiveness of her private space, they respect this discipline of hers. One of them is Irene Dujunco-Stacy, group marketing director of Facial Care Centre, which Salonga has had a decade-long partnership with. Regularly, she checks in on Salonga to ensure that she is taking care of herself, asking her to pay a visit to the clinic. With Salonga’s impeccable work ethic and jam-packed schedule, what reason would it be for her not to deserve a break?

“It’s always a good thing to once in a while shut down and not think of anything,” Salonga said.

Constantly asked how she maintains her ageless beauty, Salonga answered, “I look good for somebody who is 53. I don’t have delusions that I look like I’m in my twenties, that’s crazy. But I look like someone who is her age but takes good care of herself… I do, and it works.”

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Cover Story: Lea Salonga on the state of Philippine arts and culture