Cover Story – Jo-Anne Reyneke Sets The Record Straight
Jo-Anne Reyneke, 31, describes herself as a book that most haven’t bothered to take off the shelf to read. What better way to celebrate her new lease on life than with her first solo cover!
I feel like I’m two people — what I am inside and what I look like on the outside.
Jo-Anne Reyneke is more likely to crack a joke during the most sombre times, break out in a gospel song to send her sadness packing, talk about tear-jerking moments nonchalantly, and choose a pair of sneakers over heels! A typical Gemini, even with some of these character traits, you still can’t pin down her personality to one trait because, just like the back-end of a clock, she’s constantly doing the necessary emotional work to move herself forward. Pardon me for sounding like Jo-Anne’s BFF, when I only spent all of two hours with her [chuckles].
Two things are palpable: this mom-of -two is a well of love — constantly referring to everyone she speaks to as “my love” or “sweetheart”, and she’s as simple as simple can ever get. During a pre-shoot discussion about styling specifications, her manager, Selai Ralarala, mentions that the SAFTAwinning actress is a tomboy with an affinity for funky cornrows and simple clothing.
After relaying this message to our fashion assistant, Tsakane Ndlovu, we both questioned the truth in her manager’s statement. Jo-Anne being a tomboy, to us, sounded like the biggest cock and bull story. See, we were guilty of committing that humanly crime of judging a person by their looks. But in our defence, our opinion was largely informed by the many ‘girly-girl’ TV roles she’s portrayed over her 10-year tenure as an actress (think: Pearl on Muvhango, Thandi on Broken Vows, Busi on High Rollers and Lungi on Isidingo). “I always tell my mom that I feel like I’m two people — what I am inside and what I look like on the outside. On the inside, I’m ‘girl-next-door’ ordinary, and I’m not one
for luxurious things. In fact, I’m as kasi as one can get [chuckles]! On the outside, I don’t necessarily relate with how I look,” she shares.
JO -ANNE FROM THE BLOCK
The Pietermaritzburg-born talent beams when reminiscing about her childhood — this, despite the many tragedies that befell her family.
“I grew up eMbali with my two brothers, sister, grandmother and mom — I was very close to my brothers. We grew up in a financially unstable home because my mom was a single parent, but somehow, we went to good schools. I grew up very happy and oblivious to the fact that we were struggling. I was practically a boy — always climbing on trees, jumping off roofs and running alongside cars. Bengidlala ngizengishawe weOe,” she recalls, her anecdotes peppered with husky giggles. She’s been nursing a stubborn cold since leaving Isidingo – her contract’s come to an end. Jo-Anne mentions her departure from the soapie just as casually as she talks about her family members passing on one after the other. Perhaps sensing my shock at how nonchalantly she’s just spoken about death, she explains: “My mom only has one child left — and that’s me.”
Jo-Anne’s eldest brother, Mxolisi, passed away in 1996 — at 28 — in a hit-and-run accident. Bafana Bafana had just won the AFCON tournament, and in the spirit of celebrating, he ran into the street and got hit by a taxi. In 2003, her second brother, Lungelo, died from asthma complications aged 19. “Lungelo and my grandmother, who was sickly due to old age, would sit in bed and joke about what dying was like and which one of them would die first. They normalised death for the rest of us,” she shares, still with no ounce of emotion in sight. Her grandmother was the first to meet her end, followed by her brother less than a year later. Her only remaining sibling jumped out of a moving car last year, leaving behind two children and no explanation.
Jo-Anne shares that the way she processed this specific grief was largely influenced by how her mother handled all the deaths. “She walks in grace and doesn’t question God’s plans. For a parent to bury one child is traumatic enough — I can’t imagine having to do it three times over. I wondered what my mom could have possibly done in this
My mom only has one child left —and that’s me.
lifetime to deserve such pain. My heart really broke for her,” she shares. As a result, Jo-Anne doesn’t dwell on long-term plans, and rather prides herself in being a spur-of-the-moment kind of person. “Planning things far ahead limits us from living and being happy now. I know too many young people who had plans, but sadly didn’t make it,” she says.
BORN FEARLESS
Without sensing any fear or emotion about being jobless, I ask if she has a gig lined up, to which she answers, “No” before adding, “I’m not waiting for a role, I’m preparing for it. I can feel there’s a role out there being created for me. I’m only ever unemployed for a month or two. Beyond that, I’d probably move back home,” she quips. Jo-Anne possesses the type of faith that, as described in the Bible, could literally move mountains. What makes you so fearless in an industry where the scarcity of roles should be weighing heavily on your shoulders right now, I interrogate. “Firstly, I always try and pay ahead for most things so that when dry times hit, the basics are at least covered,” she shares. “Secondly, I almost have this inability to worry, and that worries me. When all evidence points to the fact that I should be stressing, I’m still unable to.” Jo-Anne says she sometimes feels that, while still in the womb, God gave her a preview of all the plans He had in store for her. “I believe I’m going to be okay so wholeheartedly that there’s no space for it not to happen. I have blind faith in God’s plans, but I also know that blind faith met with no hard work is stupid,” she says resolutely.
For her role on e.tv’s Broken Vows, Jo-Anne walked away with the Best Actress in a Drama award at the 2018 SAFTAs. While she finds the accolade flattering, she says it’s definitely not like in Hollywood where winning an Oscar does wonders for one’s career. “I’ve been avoiding answering this question about what I think a SAFTA is going to do for my career, but the truth is that nothing’s going to come of it because ours is not that type of industry,” she says. However, as someone whose career once had dips that left her feeling like she was wasting away, she is grateful for the recognition.
Even with a SAFTA under her belt, Jo-Anne believes she could walk into a grocery store, at any minute, without anyone staring at her or being hounded with selfie requests. She’s not a famous actress, she says, adding that she prefers it that way as she wants to be celebrated for her craft, and be left to go about her personal business. “I’m very big on privacy because it allows me to mess up in private. Bonang Matheba, for instance, will make one small mistake and get chewed up for it. The things I’m getting away with in my personal life!” Of the areas of her life that are out of bounds, she cites her children as being top of that list. “I don’t share them much with the world because I believe that with anything that you share, you’re really opening yourself up for scrutiny.” She continues: “I am, however, an open book that no one has taken off the shelf. And if you were to open it, everything is in there.”
Towards her fifth year at Muvhango, a soapie that launched her acting career, Jo-Anne fell pregnant with her daughter, Uvolwethu, and decided she was going to resign. As luck would have it, Muvhango wasn’t planning to renew her contract so she left amicably. “I stayed home for the rest of that year and gave birth to my baby. I had no work, was chubby, unhappy and the girlfriend of a very busy man. I was at home raising my baby and bored out of my mind. This was definitely not what I had come to Joburg for,” she recalls.
During a breakup with her ex-partner and the father of her two children, actor Thami Mngqolo, she moved out of their shared home – a decision she found liberating. “That ability to be independent jumpstarted something inside of me. By the time we got back together and I gave birth to our son, Lungelo, I was a completely new person,” she enthuses, also adding: “Two months after my son’s arrival, I was working and going to the type of auditions that were reserved for the Katlego Dankes, Lorcia Coopers and Terry Phetos. Plus, I’d been sick throughout my pregnancy so I shed, very quickly so, all the extra weight that had been bothering me after my first pregnancy.”
When people enquired if she’d undergone a rebranding exercise, all she could attribute the changes to was that, along with her kids, she gave birth to a new version of herself. “Having my kids was my saving grace. When you believe in yourself, everything else falls into place. I’ve never felt so good, so strong and so proud of everything I’ve achieved. I even managed to leave a relationship that I’d been scared to leave, even though it was mostly good. I own my own house now, and my life is by my design. I finally feel like this is what I came to Joburg for.”
NEW DAWN
Following her much publicised breakup with Thami, after being together for almost ten years, Jo-Anne has been single for two years. The pair were never married, she quickly clarifies, adding that this was one of the biggest rumours she’s had to dispel for years. And the rumour couldn’t have happened to the worst person. “I personally don’t believe in marriage. I am, however, open to commitment. I don’t see how marriage will keep someone from cheating and it definitely won’t keep us together,” she reasons.
Not one to care much what people think of her, Jo-Anne says news of their breakup being sprawled all over the media didn’t affect her in any way. “People don’t pay my bond, so I pay them no mind,” she jokes. Instead, it made her more guarded because she didn’t know who was leaking details of her private life to the press. Detailing what led to the deterioration of a love that was once the envy of many, she launches into a long explanation about how individuals sometimes grow in different directions in relationships. “The more you grow into your own, you put up new boundaries and discover new things that you’re not willing to stomach. You grow balls and want to exercise your bravery,” she says, sounding like a dating coach of sorts. The pair met when Jo-Anne was 19, and called it quits when she was 28. “We just started slowly falling out of love with each other. But luckily what we always had on our side was the great friendship that we’d started off on. Thankfully, that never changed,” she says, joking that they used to be mistaken for siblings all the time.
In the end, she says, she was always looking for every excuse not to go home after work, until she finally pegged this discomfort down to being unhappy. In Jo-Anne’s words, they “sat down, spoke and broke up very beautifully. It was picture-perfect. I remember us fixing our press statements together, and joking about which couple would be distraught when they heard the news. We discussed the finer details, right down to how we were going to treat each other, and what post-breakup behaviours would drive us crazy. We were also clear about the kind of people we would date going
forward, and how they should be with the kids. Most importantly, we wanted the kids to see us genuinely happy and not pretending to be.”
Their amicable breakup has made co-parenting a breeze, with Jo-Anne admitting that a harsh split would have messed her up. “Bekumnandi that we both weren’t leaving each other to be with other people ngoba that sh*t hurts. Co-parenting with a good guy, who loves his kids, has been very easy. He calls his children every day,” she says. At this point, she takes a moment to reflect on just how much their relationship contributed to her growth. “We met, became friends but that quickly gravitated to being a relationship [chuckles]. Thami included, I’ve only ever been in love four times, and ours was the most easy-going relationship. I learnt a lot about myself — how to love, and how to be patient. I also grew up and changed quite a lot.”
The only time she misses having Thami around, she says, is when the kids miss him — especially when they’re not getting their way with mom. The children still don’t get why they’re not together, but for their sake, Jo-Anne says they’re happy to always rehash the reasons.
BEYOND THE FUTURE
In between preparing for whatever new role the Universe is cooking up for her, Jo-Anne, together with her best friend Thando Thusi, plans to set their entrepreneurial vision in motion. They’re looking into launching a clothing brand that caters for the LGBTIQ+ community, as well as an events company. “I’d like us to call the label TomGirl. I’m not gay, nor am I lesbian, but I don’t feel comfortable in clothing that’s supposed to be for girls, and never have. I also don’t subscribe to the notion that a feminine style is the only way to look pretty. I see my gay friends shop in the female section, but most times the clothes aren’t the right frame for their bodies. That’s a problem I’d like us to attend to, urgently.” In addition to this, she’d like to someday establish a production company that will write the most kick-ass scripts in the history of local television.