1899 star Gabby Wong is only getting started. Having acted on stage, radio, TV, and film, Wong brings a wealth of experience to any production. FILMHOUNDS sat down with her to talk about life on the ship Kerberos, embodying Yuk Je, and her ambitious plans for the future.
The minds behind the mind-bending series Dark, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, are back for more with 1899. It blends multiple genres, has a diverse multilingual cast, and uses the latest technology to achieve an entirely virtual production. Upon first learning of the project, Wong told us that “pretty much all of it” appealed to her.
1899 focuses on a diverse group of passengers as they sail aboard the steamship Kerberos to New York. They may be searching for a new life in The Big Apple but their lives will profoundly change before they reach their destination.
Wong plays Yuk Je, the servant of the younger Ling Yi (Isabella Wei) who serves as a Japanese Geisha. However, as is a common refrain in 1899, things aren't quite as they seem. Yuk Je is actually Ling Yi's mother and they're both searching for a better life in America. It's a protective role and one that Wong portrays with concentrated composure.
Wong told us that she had just become a mother when they went into filming.
“I took the maternal instincts. It just came very naturally to me, that I was this older woman protecting a younger woman from a life of prostitution.”
The burden of this responsibility played a key factor in her character's wardrobe. Wong recalls being told: “You are going to be in heavy, heavy fabric, we are going to weigh you down”. Yuk Je forgoes the corsets of other characters as a symbol of her rebellious streak.
Makeup artist Julia Baumann spent over an hour every morning painting blemishes and veins on Wong's face. By the end, she sad it looked like she was “about to burst”. It's this simmering tension that forms a core part of her character.
“[I] have to be very very still because she is a walking bomb. If she is to let out all the trauma and weightiness of her hardship she would explode.”
It's this interplay between the internal pressures within Yuk Je and the external stressors of a rapidly changing steamship journey that make her character.
All of Yuk Je's dialogue is in Cantonese with Wong saying this ability to act in her mother tongue “really appealed” to her and that “the creators had such sensitivity to the language part of it”.
“Even the script they sent us, even in the audition situation, it was perfect, it was immaculate, it was sensitive. These guys know exactly what they're doing.”
The multilingual script adds another layer of tension throughout the series. Each character only knows as much as they can interpret due to language barriers. It makes us an audience focus keenly on the non-verbal cues used by the characters to cross these barriers. Wong tells us that:
“Bo and Janjte are very big into codes, if you watch back, you can see each character also has little codes that they might use to communicate with each other.”
These codes evolve throughout the series, extending the level of communication between characters.
“When Olek meets Jerome for the first time, Jerome hits his own chest and says Jerome, and when Olek meets Ling Yi later he uses the same technique.”
It wasn't just on the Kerberos that language barriers were a consideration. The entire production needed to be built to accommodate an International cast and team, many speaking languages that most others would not understand.
Language assistants were on set for every language spoken with Wong telling us that Bo had a script that was phonetically written for all the languages.
“He used to try and follow it on the page, but also had to watch the screen to what was going on and what he needed to tweak out of people.”
It's this tweaking of an actor's performance that's all the more difficult when the director does not speak the language being spoken. It's a gap that can only be bridged by trust between the director and the actor.
In finding the right lines and right delivery, Bo could work with the rhythms of speech but he needed to rely on the actors for the intricacies of their own language. Wong gave an example of being asked for something in English but knowing that wouldn't work in Cantonese, summing up her approach as:
“If you trust me, I will work something out that will give you exactly what you want. And he did. And it works.”
A central intrigue of 1899 and Dark before is the feeling that we have the chance to completely reinterpret a character's actions as the story progresses. It's a puzzle that gradually clicks into place until you find that it was only part of a much larger mystery all along.
Wong told us how she still finds “new things”, particularly when she rewatched the show when it was released.
“Every time I read the script, I found something else. Every time I went on set, I found something else. Every time I went in to do dubbing in the studio, I found something else.”
“I recently rewatched it with my husband, after it was released, and I still kept finding new things.”
Speaking on the future story, Wong says of creators Janjte and Bo that “they know how it ends, we just don't”. Those who have watched Dark will be intimately familiar with the kind of meticulous planning between episodes and series. Wong tells us that while the overall story arc was fixed, there were details to which the actors added themselves.
“In terms of our own characters' idiosyncrasies, we were given free rein.”
In the case of Yuk Je, she said she found herself playing with her hands while releasing some of the nervous energy in her character. Upon director Bo seeing this, he asked, “Can you just do it again? We're going to get a close-up of it”. It quickly became a trait of her character.
Due to the pandemic, the series was unable to shoot on location despite having a story that takes the characters to many distinct areas throughout the series.
At this time, Wong was told about a new virtual production technique: The Volume. This LED immersive soundstage is a new technology with a similar system only having been used for The Mandalorian. It's a nearly 360-degree stage that lets actors virtually settle into any environment from the comfort of a studio.
Wong was excited to leave behind the “green screen imagining bit” and instead be able to put that energy into her acting. The entirety of 1899, including the steamship, was shot in this studio using a new technology and way of filmmaking that was being developed throughout production. The result is very impressive for both the audience and the actors on set.
“When you are on the set, you look like where you're supposed to be.”
Wong went on to tell us that “it's really helpful as an actor to have that technology” even if it's one that takes some getting used to.
“There were simulated people in The Volume that might be drinking tea or talking and it was really funny. We walked in and it was like ‘oh we've got these Sims'.”
Gabby Wong is an actor used to the stage, having worked at the National Theatre and as a regular member of at Royal Shakespeare Company. With all its technical theatrics, The Volume appears to more closely resemble a stage than a set and Wong agrees, saying that “as a theatre actor, I felt quite comfortable there”.
“You step onto the promenade of the Kerberos and it feels like I'm treading the board of Shakespeare's Globe.”
Gabby makes it clear that she would be very happy to work with The Volume again, pointing to what it allows actors to do.
“Sometimes when you're open to the elements of the world, it sometimes makes the practicalities of filming slightly more difficult.”
The Volume is this closed space but one that we're only starting to explore with Wong saying: “I think the more we do it, the better we'll get at it”.
For a show that takes place on a large ship, the restrictions of Covid on the world and during filming served to remind us that we are all on the same boat and share responsibility for each other.
Wong shared that “we uprooted, we moved with our families” to the studio in Berlin. Not only were many navigating a different country but also the different Covid rules from their home countries.
“So we were really all going through the same thing but with a different set of rules which is a bit like 1899”.
“As a group of people navigating this very new technology as well as the pandemic, we were all navigating stuff.. we all had to work together to make it work”.
Moving beyond 1899, we talked about her path to now and what she has in store.
She said, “one of the big catalysts for me to go into drama was because I found drama a really good way to engage in conversation about issues. If you just talk at people it doesn't necessarily register but if you talk about it in drama, maybe they can engage with an issue through laughter and empathy.”
Wong remains clear that stage is her comfort zone, saying “I know how to write for stage quite a lot”. However, she is hoping to move out of this comfort zone in getting more of her own writing produced. She sees this as a way to engage with wider issues using her developed skill set.
Wong is set to appear in the upcoming Netflix show Kaos alongside an all-star cast including Jeff Goldblum in a modern retelling of Greek mythologies. She remains tight-lipped telling us, “I spent a lot of time with some fates and some furies, that's all I'm going to say”.
However, she clearly is enthused by the project and writer Charlie Carville in particular.
“They are so calm when you meet them in person but their writing is crazy.”
Beyond Kaos, Wong mentions Tony Gilroy who she worked with on Rogue One as someone she would like to work with again, saying that Andor is “one of the most amazing pieces of television out there”.
“So, Tony, give me a call or something like that.”
She hopes future projects remain gritty but also include action, saying “I was very still in 1899 and I need to move around a bit.”
It's clear Gabby Wong has some exciting projects in store that she can't quite talk about yet, telling us dryly that “I'm working on some things that I will be able to talk about soon”. We're excited to see them.
1899 is out now on Netflix. Kaos is scheduled to be released on Netflix in 2023.
