Lea Salonga recalls fear of being branded a ‘bold star’ because of ‘Miss Saigon’

LEA SALONGA
LEA SALONGA

TONY award-winner Lea Salonga admitted that being branded a “bold star” was one of her concerns when offered the musical “Miss Saigon.”

Salonga, who started as a child star, opened up about her fear in a clip from Season 11 of PBS’s “Finding Your Roots.”

“I was really concerned with how conservative audiences in the Philippine were going to take it, because my career up at that point was just very wholesome. And I was a child entertainer, performer. I was about to turn the page in a really big way. Because back home actors especially actresses you were really either wholesome or really not. There was no gray area,” Salonga told host Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Asked if she was afraid that she could no longer come back, Salonga replied: “Yeah, like am I gonna be like what they called a ‘bold star’? Am I gonna be branded as that?”

“A bold star, that’s what they were called. And then I realized, in the West, the gray area was where a lot of actors resided,” she added.

Eventually, Salonga decided to take the risk and redefined her career as she took on the role of Kim in “Miss Saigon” in London’s West End in 1989.

The phenomenal musical gave Salonga her historic Best Actress in a Musical win from the 1990 Laurence Olivier Award.

In 1991, Salonga again played the role of Kim on Broadway and received several awards. The Filipina singer-actress was the first Asian descent to win a Tony award. (ABS-CBN News)

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