Pockets of fame…
2012 has arrived. The New Year has began… the time has come. For what, you may ask, well it is time for me to kick my career into gear. I have always been talented in entertainment (and yes, I am blowing my own bloody horn) but I have had a tendency of being a specialist in procrastination. I think the basis for my procrastination was fear. I had always been over shadowed by my oldest brother Fana Mokoena who is one of South Africa’s top actors (He won Best Actor at the SAFTAs). He has been in so many movies, theatre productions and television shows both in South Africa and abroad. His most prolific characters to date in motion pictures includes General Augustin Bizumungu in 2004′s Hotel Rwanda and his role as John Garang in Machine Gun Preacher (which opens at Nu Metro cinemas on the 20th January 2012) but now he will act opposite Brad Pitt in the 2012 motion picture World War Z. Check out all the trailers below:
World War Z
Machine Gun Preacher
Hotel Rwanda
Although I had a good jump start to my entertainment career at the age of 11 when I was a main anchor on the teen continuity program on SABC 2 Kidz Can. The show was on air for about two years and my involement in the series gave me the confidence to get more involved in drama at school. I auditioned and performed in every school play I could be involved in from final productions, house plays and the 2003 Wits Raps Festival (where myself and Ryan Smit won Drama Honours at Redhill High School for winning Best Original Script at the festival). My love for the stage pushed me towards stand up comedy. My passion for stand up comedy was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in the sense that it allowed me to still be able to perform on stage, while being able to maintain a day job but a curse in the sense that I love the comedy industry so much that I began running comedy gigs, booking other comedians for shows and corporate functions and in a sense, I helped a lot of other comedians with their career rather than focusing on my own.
In the time that I was doing stand up comedy, my cousin, Lehasa Moloi, started his acting career. In a very short period of time, Lehasa was in Isidingo and just recently had the role of PJ Luthuli in the movie Spud. It is amazing that in such a short period of time, my cousin landed such cool roles in the South African film and television industry, but I must admit, with the amount of talent in our family, I was not surprised. I was really lucky to have spent some time with him this past holiday here in Cape Town. It was interesting to see how people recognized him from his role in Spud and how people recognized me from the current Castle Lite Yeti advert that is flighting at the moment, but in all honesty, he did get more attention and deservedly so; I thought Spud was awesome, relatable and well produced.
So, this year holds a lot of promise for me, but it will require me to get off my ass and show the world what I can do. The hardest thing about the transition from school into the real world is that if you are talented at school, everyone knows and people will approach you with ideas and opportunities, in the real world no-one knows what you can do, so you need to show them how talented you are, prove to them that you are worth investing in, supporting and celebrating. This year I have to do just that… keep your eyes open and watch this space…
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Welcome to Mumz The Word (and no, this is not a real Facebook page). Let this site be your comedy playground. I will post articles of interest to the comedy industry and articles that are just generally funny. I would also like to encourage you guys to send through jokes that tickled you or made you hurl with unadulterated laughter.
