What it’s like being actor in Hollywood
SA talents Savante and Sandilands take us behind the scenes of ‘Destination Marfa’
South African actors Stelio Savante and Neil Sandilands have moved to Hollywood.
Last year, Savante starred opposite Jim Caviezel in the actionthriller Infidel. He also featured in the series The Chosen and acted opposite Matt Dillon in the Netflix film Running for Grace.
Recently, Sandilands bagged a role opposite Tom Hanks in the Oscar-nominated News of the World and returned to his roots in the local small-town psychologicalthriller series on Showmax, Dam.
Savante and Sandilands will soon be seen in a new sci-fi film from director Andy Stapp, Destination Marfa.
Savante, who also worked as lead producer on the film, stars opposite Tony Todd.
It follows four friends who encounter a bizarre blurring between reality and fantasy when they stop over in the small Texas town of Marfa during a road trip.
We caught up with the pair ahead of the film’s release later this year.
What was your experience working on ‘Destination Marfa’?
Sandilands: I always love doing regional work [and] going off to remote places I’ve never been to – Louisiana, Vancouver, Bedford, New Zealand, New York, Kamieskroon and Lubbock, Texas.
I find the geography of a certain place always has a particular energy to it — a texture, a discernible temperature [and] I try to get into the time signature.
I think Lubbock was a country song done on a chainsaw. It was downright weird in a cool kinda way. Very slow.
I think it lent itself well to the movie Andy was trying to make. I also enjoyed meeting Tony Todd and Kimberley Pember.
And working with Stelio Savante, a fellow South African. Does that commonality translate into a different type of camaraderie on set?
Sandilands: It is different when you work with a fellow South African. We’re both US citizens now, but we know something others on set aren’t necessarily privy to.
Some words, some references. It’s comforting to know there’s a fella you share something with. Mostly, in the USA, I’ve been working on sets, for example ‘Hap & Leonard’, where I walk on production and don’t know a single soul.
So yeah, camaraderie is cool when you come across it. Stelio is a very committed performer.
What was it about ‘Destination Marfa’ that enticed you to work on it, not only as lead cast member, but lead producer?
Savante: My character was very experimental, nuanced and highly conflicted, and I wanted to work through the challenge of that.
In our early conversations we decided I wasn’t going to be very literal with the role — it plays into who The Hitch-hiker (Vincent) is and the film is told from his point of view. [I was also drawn to the film because of] Andy’s vision.
As far as producing, as executive producer Andy had the final say on every creative and business decision.
I [focused] on the creative producing [helping cast, helping in post, selling the film], but I don’t think of myself as lead producer.
You and Neil Sandilands feature in the film. Do you think the industry’s appetite is changing when it comes to casting foreigners?
Savante: In New York and Los Angeles foreigners have long been thriving in the industry. Australians, Brits and South Africans play Americans more than Yanks do.
Work has been plentiful for me in theatre, film and TV since the very early 1990s. Russian, Latin American and African actor friends have had similar journeys.
I speak several languages, film a lot internationally and in all of the above I’ve never found our industry to not be embracing of casting non-Americans.
I think that’s a huge misperception maybe from folks who aren’t actually in the industry because it isn’t true.
Samuel L Jackson and several other American actors have even complained about how foreigners have been taking American roles for too long.
What I do find has changed, and it’s long overdue, is that foreign characters, minorities and nontraditional characters are finally speaking in their own voices and not being written by folks who don’t understand their journey or their struggle.