The Old Diocesan Issue 13 - Magazine - Page 32
MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT
IN THE
SPOTLIGHT
Canada vs SA: how do you manage
a life and a career in both places?
I don’t think I need to explain to
any South African how much
it means to come back after
spending time in another country:
to smell the rain, drink a glass
of Pinotage, see the sunset, put
a piece of Karoo lamb on the
fire… You realise there’s a “South
Africanness” in you that’s incurable.
28 | THE OLD DIOCESAN
Paul du Toit (centre) with Mamma Mia! co-stars Tiaan Rautenbach and Matt Newman.
An added Bishops connection: producer Hazel Feldman’s grandchild, Jesse, is in Ogilvie.
Canada is great, too, especially
British Columbia. Vancouver
is beautiful, and the people
are friendly, welcoming and
quite laid-back.
I’ve realised as I’ve been going
back and forth over the past five
years that I need to have a type
of split personality to handle
this life. South Africa is a highadrenaline place – the way we
converse, drive, argue, play sport;
the way we approach life in a
country with too much crime.
When you’re in Canada, you
can’t go around with that level
of adrenaline. You’d be perceived
as just way too much!
There’s a juxtaposition in SA
of beauty and horror, joy and
sadness; that juxtaposition is
not as pronounced in Canada.
Has it been tough finding stage and
film work abroad in a career that’s
notoriously difficult to establish
in one country, never mind two?
I’d built up a few contacts before
I went over, which made things
a little easier – but I’d be lying
if I didn’t say it took a while to
establish myself. My reputation
was really in South Africa. I had
to persuade directors over there
to trust me. A few of them, when
they found out that I was South
African, were a bit dubious, but
I learnt to enter the audition room
completely in character – accent,
appearance, mannerisms. So who
I am is almost irrelevant.
It’s great to work in the American
industry – film work in Canada is
actually 90% American. The west
coast of Canada is known as
Hollywood North. I’ve been
fortunate enough to do work for
Netflix, Lifetime Channel, Apple
TV, Prime Video and others. It’s
been incredible to witness the
scale of some of these productions.
We shot The Last Frontier deep
in the Rocky Mountains. It was
the middle of winter, and just
to see how the camera crew
and all the tech and the cast
operate in -20°C, with bucketing
snow, the cast being transported
around on snowmobiles… And
all the camera equipment has
to operate in these temperatures.
The experience was an eye-opener.
And between takes, surrounded by
the snow and the vast expanses
of white forests, I was sitting in
my trailer, with fully functioning
internet, watching a Springbok
rugby game live!
INTERVIEW DEBORAH RUDMAN PHOTOGRAPH SHOWTIME MANAGEMENT
Paul du Toit (1992W) – actor,
playwright and now dancer –
divides his life between Vancouver
and Cape Town, two major cities
that are about as far apart as it’s
possible to be. For the geographers,
their great-circle distance is about
16,500 kilometres, or 82% of the
maximum possible separation
between two locations on Earth.
In Canada, Paul has access to
the North American film and TV
industry, while in South Africa
he is a long-established, awardwinning star of TV and theatre.
Last year saw the release of the
Apple TV series The Last Frontier,
in which he co-starred alongside
Jason Clarke. This year, he has
returned home for an unlikely
double-header. In June, he staged
another successful run, this time
at the South African State Theatre
in Pretoria, of The Unlikely Secret
Agent, the play about Eleanor
Kasrils that he wrote, directs
and stars in. And when we spoke
to him, he was preparing for
a starring role in the smash-hit
musical Mamma Mia!, due to open
at Artscape in September before
moving to Montecasino in October.
Paul is playing Sam Carmichael
– for those who aren’t ABBA-savvy,
that’s the Pierce Brosnan character.
We tracked down our
entertainment Super Trouper to
find out how he makes it work.
