Heart of an oke
Actor Brandon Auret is cooking on stage and screen, but he doesn’t mince his words. He spoke to Tymon Smith about SA cinema’s ‘bullshit slapstick’ problem, lazy young wannabes and the pros and cons of growing up in Springs
BRANDON Auret has been busy — acting in Andrew Worsdale’s road movie Durban Poison and Donovan Marsh’s iNumber Number, and he appears this week at the State Theatre in Pretoria, playing a journalist in Aubrey Sekhabi’s Hungry.
He’ll hit our screens again soon in the action drama Tiger House, starring Dougray Scott, and next year in Chappie — directed by Neil Blomkamp and starring Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley and Die Antwoord. The film was shot in South Africa and tells the story of a robot kidnapped by criminals and adopted into a dysfunctional family.
I was on Isidingo for seven, eight years. One day I just woke up and I said: “I’m going in today and I’m going to resign.” It was the hardest decision I ever had to make and I didn’t know what was going to happen.
‘Don’t be a prima donna, don’t be an idiot — be real, because that’s what acting is all about’
I was born and raised in a really, really small mining town, but it’s not so small anymore — a place called Springs. It’s a weird thing for me, because I went to speech and drama classes from a very young age. I must have been eight or nine years old. My mom thought it would be a good idea. I had to go to the army, that was just a means to get away from that small-town mentality. Because everybody knows everybody — they know the Ewings and the Dewings and the Screwings. It’s fucked up, but it has given me a very good grounding, I think, growing up in a small town.
I did a lot of children’s theatre as a youngster. I always say to actors: “Go do children’s theatre because it’s the best learning curve you’re going to have because kids are honest. If they don’t like your character you can’t fool them, they’re gonna tune you ‘boooo!’”
I’ve known Aubrey Sekhabi for about 12 or 13 years. He’s a very intense guy — the kind of director who phones you at 2am. He phoned me and said that seven countries had been given a mandate to write some kind of piece on food security. I was like, “What the fuck is food security?” I did it because I knew with him that things would be OK. Instead of forcing the subject in your face, he’d written a full-on play called Hungry. It’s a very, very intense, hard-hitting play.
Going back to the theatre reinforces the basics of learning your lines and being focused. It’s not like on a film, where if you’re sick they reschedule you on another day. If you’ve got a headache, or your ex has left you for another oke — that night you have to perform like it’s the opening night. That discipline is always something that I love going back to.
Neil [Blomkamp] is phenomenal, and what I love about him is that he allows the actor quite a bit of freedom in having a say in the development of the character. He’s an oke, that’s what Neil is. He’s actually highly intelligent — intimidatingly intelligent. I don’t want to go talk to him about any high-tech stuff because I know that whatever’s going to come out of my mouth is just going to sound stupid. But we can talk about cars and other things.
In South African film, the biggest problem is not the government funding, and it’s not the distribution — it’s the audience. We as South African filmmakers and actors need to start convincing our filmgoers that not all our movies are slapstick, bullshit Leon Schuster movies or Afrikaans musicals — which do very well but they’re not going to travel anywhere. We need to start gaining the trust of our filmgoers, and start telling stories that have nothing to do with politics. If you want to do political stuff, that’s what your theatre’s for.
Don’t get involved in this industry because you want to become famous — become famous because you’re in the industry and you’ve put your work and time in. We live in a generation where everybody wants things now. But you’ve got to do everything, get out there, get your name out, get to know people. And don’t be a prima donna, don’t be an idiot — be real, because that’s what acting is all about. I’ve been in the industry for 22 years professionally and I’ve been acting since I was eight years old, so it’s not just something that happened overnight, it’s been a struggle, but it’s been worth it though.
Hungry is on at the State Theatre until June 8. Durban Poison runs at the Labia in Cape Town and The Bioscope in Joburg from July. Tiger House releases later this year, and Chappie in March next year.