MANGI MEMORIES
“I’m going to miss that interaction with Mapaseka. It’s not even a work-friend thing, it’s a partnership. That doesn’t come overnight,” says Kagiso. “I won’t ‘miss’ a lot of the cast because we’re like family. We move together in a group and we’ve got that WhatsApp group thing going on and we organise things on there. As for the funniest moment, ja playing Mangi the husband. He’s the dumbest husband ever! I’ve been blinded by love, but this guy? It’s ridiculous. I’d read the script and ask myself, ‘Is it possible that he’s this dumb? Is he really doing this? Come on – this is so stupid!’” laughs Kagiso.
Mapaseka adds that “it’s bittersweet because I know that he will do greater things out there. But I will definitely miss working with him. He’s always on time, he was always prepared, he’s not a diva. He was just amazing to work with. He was an amazing TV husband! My favourite moment was when they were introduced to each other in the story. Dintle was visiting Mangi in prison (in February 2015) and she was trying to seduce them so that she could become a Nyathi.”
And Brighton says, “It was bizarre [sharing the final scene] because that sort of thing makes you consider your own mortality in the sense that you start asking, ‘How much longer do I have on the show?’ The last scene was moving. But I was losing a friend and a bit of a brother that I grew up with. I loved every one of our angry fight scenes. And to be fair, I also loved our funny scenes. I remember when we just found out that we were cousins and we were making fun of other people [in 2013]. We weren’t fighting, we were the Nyathi boys and there was a bit of camaraderie.” If Brighton had to choose the Mangi moments he found most entertaining, “It was his fight sequence with Clint
Brink ( Tino, in 2012). I wasn’t a part of it. They were doing Muay Thai training and boxing and stuff. I was a little jealous of that.”