The year is 1992, and 22-year-old Leleti Khumalo has just returned from a record-breaking four-year stint on stage as Sarafina in a world-renowned play named after the lead character.
The first two years were spent on Broadway, and then on a world tour. Young Leleti is particularly impressed with herself because the play is now being turned into a movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, and she has just bagged the lead role again. She had to audition for the lead in Sarafina, the movie, you see. Even though she had played and lived the role of Sarafina for more than four years, it still wasn’t a given that she would be cast in the role. This humbling moment it seems, and having to prove her abilities in front of camera, would years later skill her to introduce herself anew.
After many years, we meet in the Durban studio where the shoot is taking place. My eyes struggle to locate her as her team has engulfed her tiny frame. There’s the hairstylist, the make-up artists, her personal stylist, TRUELOVE’s wardrobe manager … all I can hear is her distinctive voice.
The shoot itself is one of the best ones of my career to date. She is poised, calm and takes direction while still asserting herself. In between shots we dance and laugh, while her doting husband, businessman Skhuthazo, checks in on her and on our progress.
“The twins are with their grandparents in Gauteng,” he tells me. “So this is one of those rare occasions we’re by ourselves
