When Kenneth Nkosi gets excited, he gets loud. Really, really loud. Still, he admits that he gets tired of always being happy and excited and has been known to become all moody and broody.
If there’s one thing that will perk him up again though, it is working on a film, especially when it is with good friends actor Rapulana Seiphemo and director Jann Turner.
While they were working on a very tight schedule filming Paradise Stop, that didn’t stop him and Seiphemo from clowning around behind the cameras.
“That’s what we do movies for, for fun,” he grins. Still, being one of the producers also meant being responsible about meeting budgets and not wasting time.
It also means that while what binds the trio is their love of telling stories, they also put some serious thought into how they tell the story, particularly how they use language to do so.
While Paradise Stop was shot in Mookgopong in the Limpopo Province there is not a single word spoken in Pedi.
“The reason is because the central characters are not from Limpopo, they’re from Johannes-burg.
“So predominantly the language that is used, unlike White Wedding, is Joburg lingo,” explains Nkosi.
“Me and (co-actor) Vusi (Kunene) speak a lot of Zulu and Rapulana and his parents speak Tswana and my wife (in the film) is Xhosa and I do a bit with her. Then it’s English with Johnny (Nick Boraine).
“You’d expect there’d be a lot of Afrikaans because they’re in Naboomspruit (in the film), but there’s not.”
He and Seiphemo play the two lead characters who find themselves in a small town and happen to befriend each other based on a similar background, as they both come from Joburg.
While White Wedding made use of different languages to signpost different cultures in different places, Paradise Stop takes place in a small geographical area, but uses various languages (including French with a Congolese spin) because that’s just how people speak in South Africa.
“If you look at movies like Liefling and Bakgat, they’ve made it because they’re speaking the language of the people.”
He draws a parallel with French films set in small towns, which make French people feel proud of who they are and good about themselves.
“I think we should do that in South Africa, with our languages dying slowly and our kids just taught in English and not their mother tongue. It’s scary that our languages could disappear at some point. If movies are out there to encourage people to love their languages, let’s do that. If we are helping in our little way to instil pride in our own, that’s a good thing.”
In addition to handling publicity around the film, he’s working on the second season of Class Act and he’s already used his clout as presenter to call back one of the wannabe female actresses.
“So, I’m not bad. I can see talent somewhere,” he said, though he hastened to add that acting is his passion, not casting, so good friend Moonyeen Lee shouldn’t worry.