IN THE SPOTLIGHT

I immediately felt a sense of belonging and happiness with my first-ever audition in high school. I remember going into grade eight at Parktown Girls High School and there being a frenzy about a major production that was taking place. A friend suggested I try my luck. I did and got the lead role. I carried on with it and did dramatic arts as a subject while also doing the major house plays. Professionally my acting career kicked off in 2017 when I landed one of the leading roles as Itumeleng Mokoena on One Magic’s The River.

I was still studying for my Bachelor of Arts law degree at Wits University. I’dcalled for auditions late in 2017. I was swamped with school work at the time; there were crazy assignment submissions and tests. In fact I had a 12 o’clock deadline on the day of the audition and closing time for them was between one and three o’clock. Something unexplainable urged me to go despite the school workload. I dropped everything and decided to take aleap of faith, not knowing it would change my life. And just like that, I got a callback. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow this is nice, this is fun”. I honestly thought would be short-running show and I would play a supporting character. To my shock, that wasn’t the case. Tumi was a lead and the show somehow revolves around the character.