'Sizwa Banzi' is the life of the black man. We look at it, laugh at it, re-examine it, but we do not change it.
— John Kani
Our job as artists, we believe, is not to make changes in society. We don't have the ability to do that. We reflect life. We are the mirror of the society to look into. Our job is to raise questions, but we have no answers.
We haven't got those dreams: 'I wish to become doctor or a lawyer.' Black people in South Africa have been barred in doing anything that would articulate their cause.
I believe strongly that the word 'protest' is no excuse for bad work. The artist must create.
We've got the right to vote, but what does it mean? People now want to have the right to a job, the right to education, the right to medical services.
Working with my friend Sir Antony Sher is truly one of the highlights of my career as an artist.
When western culture developed, we became detached from nature, detached from our relationship with the animals. We saw animals perhaps as only the rhino horn, the elephant's tusk, we saw it as making money.
I understood the whole purpose of Truth and Reconciliation, and I supported it 100 per cent, but I couldn't deal with it myself.
I am known for always playing virtuous characters.
'iNkaba' has made me famous in the living rooms of the people of my country. It was almost like being famous all over again. People stop me in the street and shopping malls to take pictures.
In any character you are given to play, be it evil/good/whatever character, you begin with self. You examine yourself and ruthlessly see similarities between you and the devil, or between you and the dictator, or between you and the kind man.
I always say my first break was a dead man's break.
The exchange rate of the Rand against the dollar, pound or euro makes South Africa an attractive location. The positive side of this is it gives our artists and technicians an opportunity to work.
In 'Lion King,' the music is brilliant. The CGI is amazing.
I started to get my doctorate, not to be called 'doctor.' Those are just little things you get to get recognition.
Very rarely in the life of an actor and a performer do you do something you truly believe in, do you do something you are absolutely proud of.
A telenovela is a story that's like a soapie, but it has a beginning, middle and an end.
We never deal with propaganda. We never deal with politics. We never deal with newspaper headlines. We deal with the harsh realities of our lives. We will only comment when there is more bread to eat, more space in which to move, time in which to open your mouth and sing. As long as these things have not happened, we do not talk about politics.
I couldn't really say that a repressive society would result in creative art. But somehow it does help, it is an ingredient, it acts as a Catalyst to a man who is committed.
In South Africa, it is different. When you are born not even your father knows what is going to happen in your life.
When I tell a story, I have to tell it honestly.
Seventy is beautiful for me. I am truly, at last, an elder.
In 1973, 'Sizwe Banzi is Dead' and 'The Island,' which I co-wrote with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, transferred from The Royal Court Theatre to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.
In 1990 there were about 300 scripts being written demanding the release of Nelson Mandela. And suddenly we watched Mandela walking out of prison. So those scripts had to be destroyed.
Forgiving is OK. Forgetting, never.
When I was asked to write a concept for a telenovela, I didn't underestimate my non-experience in the field.
'Captain Marvel,' whereby the steel trap is challenged, where the hero is a heroine, where the most powerful person who has the welfare of the future of the human race is a woman. What else can it be? Because that was the role of my mother when I was a kid.
We have to depoliticise our youth. We have to teach our youth that the word 'government' means them, it's something to feel pride in, not something to attack.
If we'd lived in England or America we'd have told stories abut our lives and nobody would have called it protest theatre. But the reality of South Africa was the arrests and detentions and oppression - we could not escape that, so we decided to take it on.
You found during apartheid a strange occurrence from the white folks themselves. There were those who did make a choice to speak out and stand and be counted in the army of human beings who believed in justice. And then there are those who left.
I used to wonder, when my grandmother would tell me what the wolf said to the jackal, how these animals can talk. And, she would say, 'in my stories, animals talk. Shut up and listen.'
The only reference in my life is my life, and it's my life experience. It's my environment. It's my community. I've not made that for books.
Every time there is a movie that tells a South African story, it is done by someone who must be taught the right way of pronouncing 'Sawubona.' Enough is enough.
I have been on the Urban Brew board for many years and assisted with the artistic evaluation of the various shows that were pitched to the production company.
The government harasses everything. The government must keep a constant surveillance of all activities by black people in order to maintain their reign over them, especially when they are in a minority.
It is a troubled soul that forces the human being to act. It is some kind of gangrene within you, inside of you, that eats your soul, that forces you to save your soul.
Apartheid is a lie, people can work together, people can create together.
You can't always play the hero. You have to play the villain.
Over the years, many young actors have approached me: Vusi Kunene, Sello Maake ka Ncube, and Seputla Sebogodi. They all said, 'Hey Bra John, let's do 'The Island and we want you to direct.' But somehow, my heart was not in it or I was busy with something else, so I'd say, 'ja, ja, we'll do it.'
In the global push to stop gender-based violence, men in the entertainment industry need to join forces with women to end violence by men against women and children.
'Sizwe' is the beginning of protest theatre; 'Nothing But The Truth' is post-apartheid South Africa.
Art is universal. When works of art become classics, it is because they transcend geographical boundaries, racial barriers and time.
I have never been attracted to television work. Even to appear in series and soapies. I have always appeared in theatre and major movies, writing plays and other things.
What does Macbeth want? What does Shakespeare want? What does Othello want? What does James want? What does Arthur Miller want when he wrote? Those things you incorporate and create in the character, and then you step back and you create it. It always must begin with the point of truth within yourself.
I was the generation who hated the white man, despised him, wanted to shoot him.
All over the world, there is someone sitting in a cell because he or she is not allowed freedom of expression.
We are sort of not at the level of entertainment that the Western world is. Everything we see on the play in the screen, we read, we take serious. We take that it speaks to me. And so wonderful to see how the Johannesburg, South African audiences will say: What does it say to me? What does it make me feel? Why am I celebrating it?
I remember the words of my grandmother who died at 102. I remember my great mother, Grand Brika, who died at the age of 106. They talked to us all the time. And my grandmother even lied to me. She said there was royalty. She said that my great-great-great grandfather was the king of the outer Thembu.
My love, my passion, my everything is this continent of Africa. I have always celebrated African humanity.
Inkaba' is about a feud between two South African families. They have been fighting for years, from one generation to the next. It's like those typical feuds you have in rural KwaZulu-Natal where, after a while, you do not even know why you are fighting.
