KUALA LUMPUR: Award-winning actress Siti Saleha Baharom hopes to establish herself as a popular name in Indonesian cinema or television.
After receiving positive feedback for her portrayal of a suffering young wife in Indonesian director Hanung Bramantyo’s telemovie Cinta Paling Agung last year, the Klang-born beauty of British-Malay parentage is set to appear in another Indonesian film, action comedy Spy In Love later this year.
Cinta Paling Agung greatly helped her connect with Indonesian viewers. “Many of them empathised with my character, whose husband planned to marry a second wife without properly getting her consent,” she said.
“It is never easy to penetrate the Indonesian movie market. Malaysians have to be ‘winners’ in the acting profession in order for them to get in, and I’m glad that the republic’s doors have opened for me!” she said when met at a Press preview of director Erma Fatima’s musical comedy Zombie La La La at Istana Budaya here yesterday.
On Spy In Love, she said that it is a pretty exciting action movie with loads of humour in it.
“I’m the main actress but also a damsel in distress. While I get saved by the hero, I save him too!”
Filmed over three weeks in Jakarta last year, its leading actor is Indonesian heartthrob Hamish Daud. Directed by Danial Rifky, it is a joint Indonesian and Malaysian production that pays tribute to Hollywood’s science fiction adventures of recent years such as The Hunger Games and Divergent movie series.
Saleha, 26, has just wrapped up a 60-episode romantic comedy series Uda Dan Dara. She plays Mariam who is in love with her childhood friend Izzat (Zul Ariffin), but outwardly detests him for accidentally humiliating her during their pre-teen days.
Best known for her dramas such as Ruby, Habil Dan Qabil, Nora Elena and Kekasih Awal Dan Akhir, she is set to star in Zombie La La La, playing an Egyptian zombie Cleopapa. The musical comedy to be staged at Istana Budaya will run from tomorrow till Feb 21.
“Characters in this wonderful play are comicalised historical figures and legends who have turned into zombies. They travel to Malaysia to find a cure to their rotting flesh and along the way they learn to accept each other’s differences,” says Saleha, whose co-stars include Zulin Aziz, Janna Nick, Rosnan Rahman, Amar Baharin, Amy Mastura, Lim Mei Fen and Hafreez Adam.
The third of four siblings, Saleha, a mass communication graduate, first started out as a model for print and TV advertisements at the age of 13.