Chai Fonacier on her Cebuana character in Irish-Filipino thriller ‘Nocebo’

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebuana actress Chai Fonacier couldn’t make it to Cebu in time for Sinulog with her line-up of activities that included a press screening of her first international film “Nocebo”.

“I also have upcoming shoots for an upcoming project,” she told The FREEMAN from Quezon City via a recent video call interview, where she wearing a shirt with the logo of Epic Media which co-produced “Nocebo” along with the Film Development Council of the Philippines, Screen Ireland, XYZ Films, among others.

TBA Studios handles the Philippine distribution of the film, which premieres in cinemas nationwide today. In Cebu, “Nocebo” is being screened at Ayala Central Bloc, Robinsons Galleria, and SM Seaside.

Fonacier is honored to join the likes of Dolly De Leon, Lea Salonga, Olivia Rodrigo, H.E.R., and many others in increasing media representation of Filipinos in the West. As a Cebuana, representation means a lot for her not just in the West, but also back home.

“You see these tidbits of the 13C jeepney [in ‘Patay Na si Hesus’] on the big screen and it shows how important diversity and representation are, especially here in the Philippine media,” she said.

Fonacier is most famous for her transman role in the dark comedy “Patay Na si Hesus”, the 2016 film that is unapologetically Cebuano.

Most recently, GMA Network viewers may recognize Fonacier as Lucia in “Maria Clara at Ibarra” where her most memorable scene in the teleserye’s pilot week had Tirso Cruz III’s Padre Damaso forcibly cutting Lucia’s hair to symbolize the abuse towards Filipinos during the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines.

Viewers should be relieved to hear that the locks that were sheared off weren’t her own. “My real hair was put up in a bun, with extensions underneath, and it was the extensions that were cut in the multiple takes,” she shared. “After that shooting day, I had my hair chopped off to shoulder length to fit with the continuity.”

‘The panic attack of my life’

Fonacier’s biggest break yet is finally out in Philippine theaters beginning today, January 18. She co-stars with Eva Green and Mark Strong in “Nocebo”, an Irish-Filipino psychological film directed by Lorcan Finnegan and written by Garret Shanley.

The film follows Green’s Christine, an English fashion designer who is struck by a mysterious illness that seems incurable, much to the confusion of her doctors and frustration of her husband Felix, played by Strong.

Fonacier’s Diana steps into the story as a folk healer who helps cure Christine through Filipino folk healing. But doing so means dark secrets will be revealed about Christine.

“She’s actually Bisaya,” she said. “My character actually mentions in the film that she is from Cebu.”

According to the distributor, the film was shot in Dublin, Ireland for five and a half weeks, with another week done in Manila. Filming began in February 2021 and concluded in May of the same year.

“This was the height of the pandemic when the vaccines were not available and a lot of us were unemployed, so we didn’t have projects,” she recalled. “It’s always the bigger stars who had jobs that time so I was mostly unemployed.”

“Bianca [Balbuena of Epic Media] told me in late 2020 that there is this international film that they are working on and I was like ‘Sure, great! I’d love to audition’”, she said. “I was ready to go because I didn’t have a job.”

She recalled freaking out when she found out that Green would be involved. “I had the panic attack of my entire life,” she said.

“They called me back after a few weeks and they told me to re-do the audition based on their additional instructions. Shortly after that, I got the part.”

Care and respect

Filming in Ireland, Fonacier noticed a stark difference in how movies are made outside the Philippines.

“What struck me the most about filming in another country and looking at how they do their filmmaking process is they have a lot of time to prepare,” she said, recalling the production process to be “collaborative” with several Zoom call meetings and rehearsals taking place before cameras started rolling.

“When we make films here in the Philipines, we don’t have budgets for rehearsal days. We are barely given any of that really. As actors, we have to fend for ourselves. We go into our roles kind of a little bit more doubtful and crossing our fingers hoping what we do works because most of the time, we don’t rehearse. We don’t have that collaborative process before we even shoot because most of the collaborations happen on set already.”

“I was very appreciative of the amount of preparation and time that I was given [in Ireland],” she added, as she also expressed gratitude to the Irish unit’s careful handling of the real-life props for folk healing based on their research and consultation with shamans and local spiritualists.

“There was a lot of back and forth [within the production] about the props and how to handle them because these are actual [items] that a local healer would use. For example, a specific item cannot be brought to the cemetery. If you’re going to transport this item, you cannot pass by a cemetery. So the production staff in Ireland made sure to check all the routes to make sure we weren’t passing by one. I appreciate that amount of care and respect that they have for the film before we all got into it.”

Heavy Cebuano accent

When the film’s trailer came out in October, netizens had mixed reactions towards Fonacier’s heavy Cebuano accent. While they praised the Cebuano representation on the big screen, others feared that her role might be a caricature of Filipinos.

Fonacier was puzzled by the criticism as she pointed out that those who complained about the accent were not Cebuanos themselves.

“When we hear a Japanese speak with an accent, there’s nothing to it. When we hear our K-pop idols speak in English with a Korean accent, there’s nothing to it. But why are people uncomfortable when we hear a Cebuano character speak in English with a Cebuano accent?”

She said she resents how the Philippine mainstream media has conditioned the public into thinking that Filipinos speaking in a heavy accent like Cebuano should be laughed at.

“Non-Cebuanos are afraid that ‘Oh my God, we [Filipinos] are going to be ridiculed’. Why? Because local mainstream media has taught them to ridicule the Cebuano accent,” she pointed out.

“There is a thin line between self-deprecating humor and getting ridiculed. A lot of times, unfortunately, mainstream TV humor [often] crosses that line and goes to ridiculing their own neighbors.”

Fonacier said Filipinos should re-analyze what the word “diversity” means in the country in consideration of the different dialects and cultures practiced all over the regions.

Citing her friend and filmmaker Ara Chawdhury who wrote the Cebuano dialogue in “Nocebo” and worked with Fonacier in the 2015 Cebuano film “Miss Bulalacao”, she said “the idea of a Filipino monolith identity has to be shattered.”

“There is not one singular Filipino identity and that has always been the case. We are a country of multiple languages and cultures where the Philippines is a melting pot. We have to appreciate each other and learn how not to laugh at each other’s accents.”

Fonacier stressed the need to use the accent for her character Diana to sell the authenticity of her character being actually Cebuana. “For us Cebuanos, we have grown up with that accent. We grow up hearing that accent from our titas, titos, and from the many Manny Pacquiaos of the world,” she said.

“If I chose to speak [neutral] English, my character would not be believable,” she added. “I am trying to form an actual person here. I am there to represent Diana that was given to me in the script and I have to base it on her background, and her accent is dictated by her socio-economic status and her mother tongue.”

“Therefore, Diana’s accent is not something we have to be afraid of because there is nothing inherently wrong with it. We were just taught [by the media] to laugh at it.”

Cebuano representation

Criticism aside, Fonacier is excited for Cebuanos to watch Diana on the big screen speaking their dialect in an international film like “Nocebo”.

“We rarely get any representation, even in local mainstream media,” she said. “We are just given this token representation where okay ‘As long as she speaks one word in Cebuano and says ‘Giatay’ parang okay na siya, diba?”

“When you hear Diana speak and the way she speaks, you have this reaction that’s like ‘Wow, this is the accent I grew up hearing and I am hearing it on screen.’”

While the story may focus on Christine, Fonacier is grateful that Diana is a fleshed-out character that’s not overshadowed by the protagonist.

“Seeing our culture represented like that on the big screen with it being respected, it’s not being used as some kind of decoration or somebody else’s story…The representation that we get in the film was done with respect and that’s what I am proud of.”

But Fonacier playing a Cebuana in “Nocebo” isn’t her main pitch on why Cebuanos should catch it in cinemas. “Eva Green speaks a bit of Cebuano in the movie!” she giggles in excitement.