SANDRA PRINSLOO

The actress on kissing Kani, riding bareback and finding her sense of self-worth

THIS month, Sandra Prinsloo received the Arts and Culture Trust’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her 45-year career as an actor, director and producer.

Her break-out role came in 1971, opposite her old friend Marius Weyers in PG du Plessis’s Siener in die Suburbs — a play that incensed the volk with its haunting portrayal of Joburg’s white underclass.

Soon afterwards, Prinsloo caused a national uproar as the first white actor to kiss a black actor (John Kani) on the South African stage, in August Strindberg’s Miss

Julie. Her charismatic screen presence and California-girl looks lit up more than 20 movies and TV shows. Prinsloo, 66, lives in Kalk Bay, Cape Town. I was very shy as a child, even as a young woman … but the thing is people normally admire you for saying what you think. I’ve learnt it’s okay to speak your mind, even if you think everybody is going to disagree with you.

I don’t get scared. A friend and I got mugged walking in Kalk Bay earlier this year. We both fought back and I was delighted that I held on to my bag. The mugger never saw those old ladies coming. All I remember was shouting: “Take that you f***ing little s***!” A gallop is much more comfortable than a trot. As kids, we often galloped bareback. My uncle taught me to ride without a saddle and stirrups so I wouldn’t be dragged if I fell off. I’m a qualified offshore skipper and sailed the Med and Atlantic for years. I’d love to relive the first time I got onto a sailing boat. I was so excited I couldn’t sleep

for nights. I sat on the bow and watched the stars and became conscious of my connection with the universe for the first time, and how small and large I felt at the same time. There were few female skippers when I learnt to sail in my early 30s. My instructor was a bloody chauvinist pig. I did everything perfectly while doing my skipper’s ticket, and he said, “Oh, well, I suppose I’ll have to give you your ticket.” When I did Miss Julie and kissed John on stage in 1985, about 80 people

walked out of the show one night. I thought that was alright, it’s an audience’s choice to leave a play if they don’t like it. What wasn’t nice was the ghastly deluge of hate mail I got. The Sunday Times published a photograph of John and me, just lips touching, and the whole world went bloody mad. You can’t change a government through theatre, but you can change the opinion of an audience. It empowered me to know I had a voice through theatre. After I kissed John, the SABC wasn’t that kind to me either, so television work was scarce. And I thought, perhaps I should stop acting a bit, which is how I got into industrial theatre. Next it was producing and later back to acting. I never made concrete decisions. I just went with my gut. Intuitive reinvention has been the key to my longevity in this business.

I live by myself. I’m happy with the company of my three Labradors, and my housekeeper Rebecca and her child.

I need a lot of space around me. Sometimes I’m delighted I don’t have children if I see what other people have

to go through. I was never that motherly,

anyway. I was married, briefly, for three years to Jeremy [Ag Please Daddy] Taylor. I was 35. I thought it would make my mother very happy. You lose your friends the first time round when they have babies, and the second time when they have grandchildren. I’ve some wonderful friends and I tease them about it and say, “Oh you’re so soppy, I can’t bear it.”

Children like me, strangely enough. I’m not sure why. It’s probably because I don’t talk to them like children.

I have a dread of going to a big party

where I don’t know anybody. Coming to terms with my self-worth

has been my greatest battle. When you come from a family like mine — no matter how nurturing, or kind — you’re never allowed to think you’re anything special. I went through quite a big crisis in my 40s and I went to see someone. I had long sessions with a wonderful woman and she did wonders for me. I think I’m fine now. I’m not talking about my worth as an actress, but the person that I am. — Tiara

Walters

• Prinsloo is starring in Oskar en die Pienk

Tannie at the Centurion Theatre on November 28 and 29. Bookings through Computicket.