Acting Up

To a generation of Indonesians, Ira Maya Sopha will always be their beloved childhood Cinderella. After more than 20 years of living her life outside the entertainment world, she has returned to making movies – but she definitely isn’t the girl in the  glass shoes anymore. She talks to Bruce Emond.

Ira Maya Sopha confesses that she could only get through a few pages in her first reading of the screenplay of Quickie Express. The rip-roaring, very adult sex comedy about three gigolos on the go in Jakarta was, she says, “too crazy” for a mother of four.

It was understandable apprehension for the former child star. She was up for the part of the lonely and lustful Tante Mona, a woman who, as they say, is a “complicated” character. In a sterile marriage, she hires the services of auto shop worker-turned-gigolo Jojo (Tora Sudiro) to keep her company but, in the ultimate no-no in any strictly pay-for-play relationship, falls for the young stud.

Tante Mona is kind of a variation on The Graduate’s Mrs. Robinson, transplanted to affluent Jakarta suburbia.

Ira went to producer Nia Dinata, who said she believed Ira had the acting range to do justice to the role. Although her four children and friends also were supportive, her self-doubt persisted.

“But another side of me, a little voice inside of me, said, ‘you admire a lot of foreign actors and they have to take a variety of roles in their career’,” says Ira. “And I thought that, yes, I definitely can do it, too.”

She got the part, only her second after a 23-year absence from the big screen (she had returned, playing a Chinese-Indonesian wife, in another Kalyana Shira Films project, Berbagi Suami, in 2006). Director Dimas Djayadiningrat says her acting experience showed in her knowledge of camera angles, hitting her marks and “having a sense of ownership” about her character.

Her professionalism also came through in what has become known simply as “that scene” between Tante Mona and Jojo. 

Their first meeting plays out as an eye-opening sequence in which Tante Mona eventually goes down on the gigolo under a piano.  Ira, who talks in florid, run-on sentences punctuated with high-pitched exclamations, squeals “embarrassing!” when the scene is mentioned.

Dimas says Ira came to him before they shot the scene.

“She said, ‘how are we going to do this scene? You know that people think of me as Cinderella’. I told her that while it may seem vulgar on paper, it’s a sex comedy, so it’ll be funny.”

And it is; while perhaps not as shocking as the same-sex kiss of Tora and Surya Saputra in Arisan, it becomes hilarious thanks to Tora’s over-the-top facial expressions (and the absurdity of him tinkering away at the keys).

What was going on down below? Ira, on Dimas’ instruction, was vigorously pinching her co-star’s leg to get the desired reaction.

Ira is full of praise for the “crazy trio” of Nia, screenwriter Joko Anwar and Dimas for being willing to tackle a taboo subject like male prostitution in a way that is accessible to the public.

“They look at the social problems that are happening around us, in our families and with our friends,” she says of Kalyana Shira, which produced the gay-themed Arisan and Berbagi Suami, centered on polygamy.

She reveals that she has seen for herself the seamy underside of urban Jakarta. Invited by a group of female acquaintances for an afternoon out, Ira says she was a bit surprised when two young men arrived. She assumed they were the sons of one of the group; it turned out that they were the early-evening private entertainment.

“They invited me to go upstairs and I was like, let me outta here, I have to go pick up my kids!”

A self-described mom to everybody, she proudly says that she puts her children first as a single parent today. She went through a messy divorce in 2006 that thrust her briefly into the infotainment spotlight. Previously, she had rarely scored a mention in the media except, she jokes, when she was pregnant and gave birth. 

Of course, her name always conjures up fond memories for those who grew up with her movies and music in the 1970s. The oldest of four children, she inherited musical influences; her father, who is of Dutch, English and Chinese descent, played music, and her Makassar-Palembang mother liked to sing.

When she was eight, she was introduced by a neighbor to the group Usman Bersaudara, which led to her first album, Abang Helicak (Mr. Helicap Driver), in 1976, and the hit Cinderella album in 1978. She also made four movies; she was a Best Actress nominee at the Indonesian Film Festival in 1979 for Ira Maya Si Anak Tiri (Ira Maya the Stepchild).  

After Ira Maya Putri Cinderella (Ira Maya Cinderella’s Daughter), she finished high school, eventually going to university, starting a career in hotel public relations, marrying and becoming a housewife.

She looks back at her years as a child star with affection, describing them as “beautiful”, but she also knows what she missed.

“I couldn’t be a child because everybody knew me,” she says at the South Jakarta furniture showroom that she runs for a friend. “I wasn’t just my parents’ child, but everybody in Indonesia knew me. I couldn’t climb trees, ride my bike, but I was happy. My parents never insisted that I do it. What was important was that I got good grades at school.”

She had come back to the periphery of the showbiz sphere when she hosted a TV talk show about daily life. One of the guests was Nia, and Ira told her that she wanted to act again. She was offered the role in Berbagi Suami after passing the screen test.

She had also confided in Nia that she would love to act with Tora, which eventually led to her colorful association with Tante Mona.

Despite the squeals, shrieks and “can you believe that?” groans, she is proud of her cinematic alter ego (she has asked her parents not to watch the movie, and her children will have to wait until they are adults).

“I wanted to really get completely into the role, know who she is and for the public to realize that I’m not the slim Cinderella of 1978. I’m a 40-year-old woman with four children, man!”

Ira, who will play a mother in Claudia/Jasmine to be released this year, is interested in testing herself, and the public perceptions of her, even more on screen. She talks about discussing with Joko a total break-out role: a psychopath.

But even then the pretty girl of her past will likely reappear. She still does, all the time.

“It’s been a barrel of laughs,” she says of making the movie and promoting it.“But that Tora is really something. He keeps on saying, ‘Hey, I’m the man who kissed Cinderella you know’.”

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