The most important thing Terry Pheto's learnt from her steady rise in showbiz

Terry Pheto, South Africa's golden girl, is surrounded by her glam squad at swish Kyalami hotel Tintswalo At Waterfall. She's sitting on a high chair, facing a mirror ringed by bright lights.

At 35, Pheto is at ease with herself, assured and always smiling. Everyone is talking about her, but it wasn't always that way. She points out that no one remembers all the rejections that preceded her international successes.

Pheto first hit the big time in 2005 as Miriam in Tsotsi, which won Best Foreign Film at the 2006 Academy Awards.

Her journey to Hollywood began in the Vaal Triangle. She was raised in Vereeniging and left home at 21 to pursue an acting career in Johannesburg.

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"My parents couldn't afford to send me to an institution to study acting," she says. "My dream was to go to the Market Theatre and audition."

But she arrived a day late for the first audition. "I sat outside for four hours, asking myself: 'Am I going to take a taxi back to the Vaal with nothing?'"

While sitting there, she fell into conversation with a man who told her about the Positive Arts Society's theatre group in Soweto, a non-profit organisation that drew kids off the street and onto the stage.

"I knew I had to leave the comfort of my home and start somewhere," she says. So she did. She started working with Positive Arts, who organised lodgings for her in Soweto. "I stayed in a back room and had to share a bed with another girl."

This was one of the experiences she drew on for her Tsotsi role.

"Out of all the characters I've played, I related most to her," says Pheto. "She was living in a squatter camp, carrying a bucket of water on her head, but she cared about life. She made ends meet every day. I could compare her to my mother or my aunt, and I also used to carry a bucket of water on my head when I was 16."

She keeps her personal life and her family private, but this year she lost one of her biggest cheerleaders, her father.

"He was worried about me when I moved to Soweto," she says. "Like any parent would be. But he believed in me and rooted for me."

She is no stranger to loss. When Tsotsi won an Oscar, Pheto had to walk the red carpet after burying her brother.

"You just have to chin up, rise up and show up," she says. "You have to find a way to deal with your pain."

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From local success came international recognition. In 2011 Pheto joined the cast of long-running US soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, playing a character called Dr Malaika Maponya.

In 2015 she produced her first film, Ayanda, under the label of her Leading Lady production company. And last year she was nominated for a British Independent Films award for her supporting role as Naledi Khama, sister of Seretse, in A United Kingdom.

She plays Winnie Mandela in the three-part saga Madiba, currently being shown as part of February's Black History Month programming on BET International.

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"I'm really grateful to be playing mam Winnie," says Pheto. "It is the biggest achievement of my life. It is much harder to play a real person. I approached the role with the utmost respect."

She says that wherever she goes she is embraced for being South African. "We need to see ourselves the way the world sees us. What makes us great is all our different, diverse little pieces. Some of them are cracked and some are broken and some are beautiful, but they make us great.

"So many people wish they were a part of us, especially black Americans. They feel like our freedom and our success is part of them - and in a way it is. They supported us and they're proud to see us where we are today."

This year Pheto was chosen to be a celebrity judge on the E News show E Host. She is on billboards in Los Angeles alongside Laurence Fishburne and other A-listers. But she does not put global stars above her South African colleagues.

"I've been fortunate enough to work with actors that have commitment and dedication, both locally and internationally," she says. "There's nothing more inspiring.

"One thing I've learnt both from local and international actors is to approach the industry with the respect it deserves. If you treat life with respect, life will respect you back. The bigger the stars, the more selfless and giving they need to be."