This week’s man crush Monday is Thomas Gumede, the award winning actor, television presenter, reality star and producer…could his portfolio get any bigger? He speaks to us about his involvement in the new South African movie, Cold Harbour.
WHO IS LEGAMA?
I play a character called Legama who is a young man that has been well educated and wants to get into politics, but his father persuades him to join the police force. During his time there he gets to experience the real world around him. However, his ambition gets him into a conflicting situation.
GETTING INTO CHARACTER
I think my character and I do have similar characteristics. When a director casts you for a role, you get that job because there are similar attributes that you and the character share. It can be very tricky to make the character’s you play different from each other. With this movie I was fortunate to work with the director on the involvement of Legama in the different scenes throughout the movie.
THE SET
It was a dream come true. Seeing what I studied for come into play was amazing. I had always wanted to work with people such as Tony Kgoroge and Fana Mokoena to name a few. I dreamt of being that actor in an action film playing a cop and I got to do that alongside amazing actors.
WHERE THIS TAKES ME
Doing this movie has brought me a lot closer to what I am passionate about and what I want to continue doing, which is making films. It’s simply another step in the right direction.
THE BALANCE
I just do what I am passionate about and things always find a way of working out that way. I am never certain of what jobs may come my way but schedules open up and things change. While we were shooting a season of Forever Young I had to go shoot the film, that was my reality and we found a way to put that in the show.
UP NEXT
I still continue to produce work for Parental Advisory Productions with Siyabonga Ngwekazi, Simphiwe Mhlongo and Lungile Radu. We have a new show we are working on, we just wrapped up and have various other shows to air soon. There is another local film I will be in that will be released next year. I am also working on my one man stand-up comedy for February 2015.
Cold Habour is out at Ster-Kinkor Cinema’s 25 July.
