South Africa knows Terence Bridgett the actor. Now they will get to see him unmasked like never before as he makes his reality series debut – and cooks his heart out
YOU cannot sum up Terence Bridgett in one word. This actor is so many wonderful things rolled into one.
Incorrigibly witty, irreverent at times, playful, poignantly incisive – he is like a Mystery Box on Celebrity MasterChef SA: a surprise at every turn.
We have seen him dazzle on stage, TV and film; slipping into an array of distinctly-etched characters with chameleon-like panache.
I have to say, though – one afternoon isn’t enough time to chat to him. I laughed so hard, I could have powered an Eskom generator. Of course, that was mostly at the off-the-record anecdotes he shared.
Celebrity Masterchef SA marks his foray into the reality genre.
He jokes: “Trust me, you would never catch me doing a Survivor. I’m not Sade (Giliberti). I won’t even resemble myself after day three. But I would do MasterChef again in a heartbeat. You will only see me again in something else if I still had access to my products and hairdryer (laughs). I will try many things, twice – that’s my motto.
“I have always had a character: some flamboyant, some of them butch, some of them sophisticated… But I have never been Terence on television.”
And he certainly makes an indelible impression in the first episode, where the fabulously dramatic Patricia Lewis got his waterworks going when they were reflecting on their favourite childhood dish, which they prepared with a mini-me version of themselves.
He laughs: “Patricia got emotional and I was thinking, ‘please don’t come to me, please don’t come to me’, and, of course, they did. So my first words on MasterChef are shared through tears. Now I look like a big girl.”
As one of 10 celebrities on the show, he says: “Viewers will see an honesty; a sort of nakedness and vulnerability that you haven’t seen before.”
Now Bridgett is no foodie by any means. But his love of food came from his late mum when he was a young boy.
“I am not a chef or cook by any stretch of the imagination. What I did have was a mother who cooked with lots of love and abundance. We are a big family. I have four older sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephews. Every-thing used to always happen at our house. My mum would grossly over-cater. I think that’s a South African thing, though. We love each other with food. We console each other with food. It’s a part of every single culture, whether you’re coloured, Indian, black.”
What he also took from his mum, who never used a recipe, is to be freehanded when cooking.
A fan of every MasterChef series out there, except for the ones in foreign languages, Bridgett knew, more or less, what to expect.
He reveals: “I was aware right from the beginning that they weren’t going to dumb it down because we are celebrities. We had to bring it to the table. I’m quite a nerd, actually. What I discovered about the 10 of us is as different as we all are – pop stars, presenters, radio DJs, stand-up comedians – we are all nerds in our own way. We all did a helluva lot of research, too.”
Although there was strict protocol on the show, especially about the contestants engaging with one another – Bridgett asked “management” for some latitude given that he’d known some of his fellow contestants for years.
“We got a lot of leeway in terms of what we could say to the judges, and what we could do. I can’t imagine the time they spent on editing, just with Chris Forrest and me… let alone Tol A$$ Mo once he gets going.”Of the experience, he offers: “You are spoilt in the MasterChef kitchen. From the Woolies pantry, Robertsons herbs and spices, Maxwell & Williams knives. You are working with the top of the range of everything. So you really have no excuse in terms of your tools. Those Global Knives, though, they are unbelievably sharp. I was trying to open a tray of eggs with it and cut my thumb – it’s surgical sharp. I couldn’t even stop because it was a group challenge so I ended up with a finger condom.”
He reveals that it was definitely nerve-wracking when, while cooking, seven cameras are on you all of a sudden: “You know that you are doing something wrong, but you just don’t know what.”
His greatest fear, though, wasn’t so much the Mystery Box challenges as it was the idea of baking – that’s when he wants to head for the door.
Along the way, Bridgett forged some fabulous friendships.
“I had an instant spiritual connection with Merwelene (van der Merwe). She is such an extraordinary person. In fact, we are doing a nude shoot together,” he confirmed.
“Then there is Alex Jay, an institution and national icon. I grew up watching Alex when he was all punked-up. Then we found out that we’re both from Fish Hoek and that my mother knows his father. Sade is a completely unique person. What I love most about her is her lack of apology. And that isn’t arrogance, it just means you have justified everything you are to yourself. Very sexy. Chris was my drinking buddy. If you are going to be trying recipes at 2am, best you be doing it with a ginger comedian.”
While he has certainly broadened his culinary knowledge on the show and become somewhat of a knife snob, he has learnt one other very important thing.
“I have discovered, with all the knowledge, technique and everything, food is very much from the heart. You have to cook with love.”
Although Tol A$$ Mo gives him some competition initially, it is Lorna Maseko who proves to be the real threat.
Bridgett laughs: “People have seen me do a lot of things. What they haven’t seen me do is panic. And I panicked a lot!”
And that’s a semi-dissection of Bridgett, who will soon be seen in the movie Kite, making another pioneering move in his career.
• Celebrity MasterChef SA airs on M-Net (DStv channel 101) from this Sunday at 6pm.