Nondumiso Tembe dishes on her juicy new roles

26 March 2017 - 02:00 By Andile Ndlovu
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Nondumiso Tembe
Nondumiso Tembe
Image: BJOERN KOMMERELL

It is a wet Saturday morning in Los Angeles and Nondumiso Tembe is attempting to soothe her homesickness (and the inclement weather) by singing along to Kelly Khumalo's beautiful love ballad 'Uthando'.

"I miss home so bad today," cries the 32-year-old Durban-born actress, musician and all-round performer.

Tembe, last seen on South African television as the polarising Miss Mya on SABC1's Generations almost three years ago, has been working non-stop in the entertainment capital of the world - giving her little time to bask in sentimentality.

"I listen to lots of African music. Growing up in New York, that is how my parents kept me connected. So it's always what I go back to when I miss home and need to reconnect," she says.

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Born to renowned opera singers Linda Bukhosini and Bongani Tembe, she was raised in the Big Apple where her parents graduated from Juilliard. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from the Yale School of Drama and a bachelor degree in theatre and political science from New York's New School University; spent some time at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford studying classical theatre; and found time to study ballet too.

She has appeared in the Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning show True Blood, The Book of Negroes, NCIS: LA, Walking Dead and Castle, and is now watched by more than three million viewers in the Navy SEAL-inspired television series SIX every Wednesday night on the History Channel.

In it she plays Na'omi Ajimuda, a women's rights activist who opens a school for girls in Nigeria, only to face abduction by Boko Haram. The first season will also be shown across Europe, Asia and Canada.

Tembe's research for the role included studying the testimonies of the rescued Chibok girls, as well as those of Syrian women who suffered at the hands of Islamic State.

SIX does not yet have a South African release date, but Tembe can be seen in the upcoming romantic movie Zulu Wedding. She plays a dancer who falls for an advertising executive in New York, a relationship complicated by the fact that she is still traditionally married to a king back in South Africa.

Tembe particularly enjoyed the role because it allowed her to combine two of her passions: acting and dancing.

"I still train very hard," she says of her dancing side. "I take three advanced intermediate ballet classes almost every week, but sometimes it's a bit hard when I'm shooting."

She is no slouch on the vocal front either. Her debut album Izwi Lami , released six years ago, spawned the hit single Just A Guy, which also won a Metro FM award for best music video. Just don't suggest that her music seems to have lost out to acting.

"I always have new music, bro," she says. "I'm constantly writing and I always miss singing. It's just a matter of timing."

WATCH the music video for Nondumiso Tembe's hit single Just a Guy

 

She is now filming the two-hour Lifetime biopic Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, in which she plays Grace Rwaramba, nanny to Jackson's children. Of the daunting expectations to do the story justice, Tembe says she would "never be a part of something that dishonoured him".

"Luckily for us, Suzanne de Passe, who discovered the Jackson Five and was very close with Michael, is one of our executive producers. I don't think MJ fans, myself included, will be disappointed.

"I think what is unique and very special about the film is that it really humanises him. It reveals that this giant, this icon, one of the greatest artists of all time whom we adored and admired, judged and jeered at, was painfully human."

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