Generations creator Mfundi Vundla says Vavi tried to intervene in actor strike

Mfundi Vundla had sleepless nights as he battled the stress of the strike drama around Generations three months ago.

"I even had to take sleeping pills. This thing was affecting my health," he said of the crisis that erupted following the sacking of 16 actors who went on strike in August.

But the craziness and chaos have subsided, filming is on track and tomorrow night - after a two-month absence - the show is back on SABC1.

The director of the soapie has spoken for the first time about the strike and its impact on him .

He indicated that he refused to allow the striking actors to call the shots. After all, he is credited with creating the country's top-rated daytime soapie and he'd be damned if he would allow actors to call the shots.

"I figured, let me just get them out of my life," he said.

The 68-year-old director said dealing with the strike "was not easy by any means, at times it was actually scary". But he said that once the strike started, he knew he would have to get rid of the actors defying him.

"After all that was being said about me, how do you go back and start working with people like them?" he said.

On August 11, the actors who had demanded extended contracts were fired. They have since approached the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration. The case is still before the commission.

The actors "demanded exploitation fees" covering royalties, compensation for reruns , payment for character-specific product placement and a standard industry pay hike of up to R30000 a week.

Vundla said he was harassed by Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula. "It was chaos ," said Vundla.

After the series was abruptly cancelled, Vundla went abroad to "clear my head".

Upon arriving in Chicago, he became involved in a heated SMS exchange with Vavi.

He said the trade unionist "demanded" that they meet to discuss the sacked actors. "That was not going to happen," said Vundla.

The last SMS Vundla wrote to Vavi read: "Mr Vavi, I will not see you and kindly refrain from contacting me again."

He said most of his friends thought he had lost it when he took on Vavi.

"But I was fighting for my show and this Vavi comes around and thinks he can f*** with my show. No way, that was not going to happen," shouted Vundla.

The director said he was accountable only to the commissioners of his show, the SABC, and the show's sevenmillion viewers.

He did confess, however, that he considered getting one of the 16 sacked actors back. He put out feelers to Seputla Sebogodi, who played villain Kenneth Mashaba.

"I wanted Seputla back and I was having back-door conversations with his manager - and for a while I thought it was going to work out.

"After a strategy meeting in the Magaliesberg, where we were rewriting the whole Generations, we made up our minds that having him back wasn't going to work," said Vundla.

With his new show set to start tomorrow on SABC1 at 8pm, Vundla revealed that he had been approached by numerous big-name actors, including Connie Ferguson, who plays Karabo Moroka, and Sello Maake Ka Ncube, who played Archie Moroka. Maake Ka Ncube did not make the cut because "his character had been killed on the show years ago".

Vundla said he had worked for 20 years to build up Generations and "I'll be damned if anyone comes along and destroys this".

"Canning the show was never a consideration. My view was ... these 16 people walked into a show that was already successful anyway. They didn't build this thing.

"They were too happy to jump into Generations, which was successful, and for them to think all of a sudden ngabo abayakhileyo leGenerations (they built this Generations), no ways," shouted Vundla.