Love by chance
Kea Zawadi discusses her character Nkuli’s journey to finding love in three months on romcom show 13 Weeks To Find Mr Right.
Season 1 Sundays SABC1 (*191) 19:30
When it’s revealed that fictional glossy magazine Dazzle is retrenching workers to go digital, junior journalist Nkuli (Kea Zawadi) does the extreme to save her job in local comedy series 13 Weeks To Find Mr Right. She pitches an idea to write an online column in which she joins a dating app called Flirt under a false identity – as her alias Lulu – and she attempts to find her Prince Charming in just three months.
After each date, Nkuli returns to the office and journals her unique dating experiences. “Nkuli realises that dating isn’t as easy as she anticipated. Some of the men she meets are insufferable,” explains Kea, whose character’s list of disaster dates include an obnoxious man who couldn’t stop talking about himself, there’s one who was secretly married, and another who wasn’t over his exgirlfriend and kept bringing her up.
As the show progresses, Nkuli has better luck, but her quest to find Mr Right are in tatters when she starts falling for her new aspiring comedian pal Zakhele (Bonko Khoza). “We’ll see Nkuli conflicted and fight her feelings for Zakhele to save her job. It’s going to be an interesting ride,” adds Kea, who tells us more about Nkuli’s journey to finding true love.
Wasn’t there another way for Nkuli to save her job without dating 13 men? Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Nkuli would do anything to continue working at Dazzle. Seeing that she dumped her boyfriend of six years Lesiba (Lebo Msiza) when the show started in February, Nkuli is open to dating all these men. Does she believe that she’ll find Mr Right on these dates? Not entirely. She still has her reservations about finding love online.
What’s the most difficult aspect of dating on Flirt? With Flirt, there aren’t any profile photos, so you only see your match for the first time in person. The intention is that couples will form a connection and then get to know each other’s personalities before they meet. What is Nkuli looking for in a partner? Someone who’s handsome, ambitious, and caring. She also wants someone who is going to make her laugh – and she shares that with Zakhele, but she stops herself from falling in love with him because her job comes first.
Later, Nkuli learns that the column isn’t a hit with readers. How does she react to that? She’s disappointed. Because her heart isn’t fully committed to these dates, it shows in her writing. And, of course, she isn’t compatible with her dates. To save the column, Nkuli’s editor Elaine (Lerato Mvelase) tells her to spice things up. As a result, Nkuli invests more of herself in the dates, which lands her in a big of trouble… Have you tried finding love on a dating app before and how did it go? Definitely. I’ve tried Bumble and Tinder and I won’t lie, in most instances, those dates flopped. Butt I’ve also found success on dating apps before. I believe that you can find genuine people online, but you first have to go through a lot of misses until you eventually find a hit.
You started your career in the entertainment industry on radio. Describe the transition into acting. This is my first lead role, and it’s really been fantastic. I almost didn’t audition for Nkuli. When I received the brief from my agent and I saw the languages that Nkuli was expected to speak, I thought that the role wasn’t for me. Days later, my agent told me that the producers of 13 Weeks To Find Mr Right still hadn’t cast Nkuli and they were making exceptions for actress who didn’t speak [isiZulu]. I sent my audition tape and I got the call a bit later that I’d got the role. I’ve always wanted to act since I was a kid. I hope that in future, I’ll act in more shows. For now, I’m going to auditions and acting classes.