When we first got introduced to Thulane on iSthunzi, our immediate thoughts were ‘Hmm..this young man is such a breath of fresh air & with great talent as well.’ And don’t get us started on how romantic he sounds when it comes to his mother tongue - isiZulu.
This week we decided to shed a bit of light on the young actor who is also acting on iNumber Number which has since turned into a series.
As we shifted more of our focus towards Thulane we realised that there is nothing much about him on the internet. Weird right?
So we decided to track the young man down and have a one on one conversation with one of South Africa’s rising stars.
We first asked Thulane about his roots and where he comes from we soon found out that he was actually born in Pretoria but left the city for KZN.
“I was born in Pretoria but later on left the city, we had a few family struggles so I then had to go live in KZN for a while, basically I’ve been everywhere but after a while I then returned to Pretoria.”
When it comes to his career in acting, Thulane says he knew what he wanted to do when he completed matric.
“I kind of knew what I want to do but I wasn’t too sure, after matric I couldn’t find a school (varsity) so I thought to myself what was I going to do? Then I went to the State Theatre to learn acting and from there on that’s when I definitely knew that I wanted to be an actor. Acting was something that was planted in me, then it grew, from then on I started to love it more.”
Thulane also mentioned that his family at first didn’t quite understand why he wanted to be an actor and assumed that he only just wanted to clown around and not study.
“Of course, when I began studying acting, it wasn’t easy, because the money that you have to pay for the course wasn’t easy as well. My family didn’t give me the money easy because they thought ‘No man you just want to be a clown, uyaphapha Thulane. There’s other things to do out there.’ But now, when they see me on TV then they started easing up on me, but basically it wasn’t easy at first for them.”
Thulane says he was overwhelmed by all the positive feedback he received from his acting debut on Isthunzi and that’s what he holds onto to keep him going in the industry. Thulane is part of a theatre organization called Nokhukhanya that goes to schools to teach children about the social issues in society.
Main image credit: gaenor.co.za