Nobo the Filmstar!

Some time ago I starred in the soon to-be released, Mzansi-spectacular, no budget film uMalusi. It was one of the most surreal experiences that I've ever warped into in my entire life, and those who know me will tell you that I warp into some real crazy shit from time to time. My childhood friend Mlandu Sikwebu called me up one day and said "Tyke!" the name those who grew up with me know me by. "I've written a film which I want you to play the lead role in." Having never acted in a film before, heck having hardly acted in my life before I was honoured and somewhat suprized that he was asking me to play the lead role in a piece that would see him fulfilling his dreams. But without even hesitating I agreed. At the time I had no idea how he was going to pull it off - but I assured him that when he was ready to shoot, I'd be ready to perform. It took a couple of months before he got back to me with anything tangible, but by then I was ready to follow one of my most trusted friends in any direction his finger pointed. He told me that he'd been talking to Jahmil XT. Qubeka another Childhood friend who was living part of his dream, as a producer/director in Johannesburg and he'd agreed to produce the film. Not only was Jahmil down for the project, but he'd managed to draw an entire cast which included the likes of bra Lucas Sithole amongst other well-known people to walk this walk with us. By now I was convinced that a film was going to be made and there was no turning back. At the time he called me - the first time, I was a avid runner, preparing to run the 2 Ocean's Marathon. I was as fit as a olympian on steriods so committing to perform in a film about a runner was something I imagined would be as easy as jerking off to FHM calendar spread (okay maybe that's a little dramatic), but you get the idea. It wasn't long after this conversation that I was involved in a soccer accident, more like an crippling incident, which put me in crutches and forced me to have my knees operated on. At the back of my mind, thoughts of whether I'd be ready for the film or whether I'd ever be able to run again started to torture my mind. I recall that I embraced my cripple status so much that at some point I travelled the country to the Loerie Awards (The Most Prestigious Advertising Awards in Margate) where I partied for 3 days straight, on copulous bottles of tequila and other afrodisiacs - climbing hills, dancing from midday till sunrise in crutches, without as much as thread of worry about my forthcoming project. Soon after I got of the crutches I contcated Mlandu, to tell him that all was well and that he could look forward to seeing me on the shoot date later that year in December. What I didn't tell him was that the doctor had said that it would take anything from 1 to 2 years to recover from my type of surgery which mean that I wouldn't be able to run for sometime - but I decided that nothing including my wobbly ass knees was going to prevent me from doing this and doing it well. I arrived in East London on the 1st December with my my knees strapped in protective straps to Timbaktu. I figured I would find a way to cheat the entire process since in advertising whenever you reach a hurdle you can't beat - you cheat the shot using sometype of technological solution or another. To my suprize the DOP who was also the producer and my mate,Jahmil refused to shoot me with what he called crap on my legs. As far as he was concerned it wouldn't help with the realistic approach the film intended to take and unlike advertising ads, we didn't have a budget to bring in the latest technological cheat mechanisms to this set. So I would have to actually really run... on miles and miles of beach, gravel road, bush, uneven loxion streets and sports fields with holes the size of volcanic dongas in them. I won't lie or exaggerate. Every step I took was like being thrown into a gauntlet of gladiators using metal poles instead of padded batons. Never in my life had a ever hurt the way that I did, but at the risk of letting my friends down and at the risk of failing in my goal I sucked it in a moaned every step of the way. I was like a whining little girl begging for her piece of the candy. F U this, and screw u that became the on set language. It was bad enough that every scene had to be done in the grimiest, grittiest most annoying circumstances, but there was no way they weren't going to know that this was altogether F'd up. Added to that, although the first shoot date was supposed to be on the 01 December - we only statrted shooting on the 12th or so and the first I saw of the all english script was very late on the 11th. At which point I was advised that I would have to do the entire film in vernacular (xhosa). As we were all friends you would have expected that there would have been some level of respect within the ranks. It would be totally unfair for me to say that we totally disrespected each other, but when the project began, we were all rather patient with each other, but very soon into the first week - the big cuss words arrived. And when I say big cuss words, I'm talking about the disrespect of mother's, mother's mother's grandmothers... and not in the kind english way white people swear at each other - i'm talking about the harsh aggressive taxi violent way that you would only expect to hear from Jozi truck and taxi drivers. If it wasn't the director cutting down the producer, it was the producer on the extras or the director on the Make-up ladies who were also the production team and the caterers! So you can only imagine how many people must have had peas with ghob or other lude products in their food. The thing about a production like this is that you have to be patient and sensitive to everyones needs because the temperaments can be an injustice to everyone, especially since everyone either ae at my house or where sleeping at the producers rented digs. At any given moment someone might have to find another bed for the night or go hungry because they were unnecessarily foul to someone else.