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Next month hunky actor Ezra Mabengeza will hit local cinema screens playing outlaw John Kepe in South Africa’s 2019 Oscar contender, Sew the Winter to my Skin.
Mabengeza now lives in Cape Town, where he is further honing his fine physique, while learning French and German for possible film projects in Europe.
And the good news is that he is single.
This week Mabengeza told City Press that he was saving money to enrol at the Susan Batson Studio in New York for further acting coaching. He hopes to leave for the US city after his publicity obligations for Sew the Winter to my Skin are done.
He declined to divulge his age, saying he wanted to avoid being typecast based on his years.
“So this woman, Susan, I am hoping for her to help me develop my talent, to coach me,” he said. “One of the things I need to work on, for example, is getting in and out of character.”
Mabengeza admitted that it was his absorption in the characters he plays which caused pressure in his past relationships. He said Sew the Winter to My Skin helped him regain focus after a painful divorce from his former wife, a New York lawyer, in 2014.
“I become consumed in characters and struggle to get out. This is something I need to work on. I do want a family; I want a relationship, a feminine energy in my life.”
Born in Port Elizabeth, Mabengeza is one of four siblings. A key moment in his life was when security police took away his father – a former ANC street committee member – when he was 12 years old. His mother was left a single parent for years, attending his school plays at St George’s Preparatory School by herself.
It was at his parental home in Port Elizabeth that Mabengeza started putting on muscle for the part of John Kepe.
“My parents live an hour from the beach. So I would run to the beach to swim in the ocean, do sprints on the sand to bulk up and so on. Over Christmas 2016 I had no Christmas meals or New Year’s Eve parties or the like. I was training, you know, I was on it all the way.”
The film was shot between October and December 2017 in the Eastern Cape. It did not go without mishap. Mabengeza dislocated a shoulder after being thrown off a horse on set.
“I grew up riding horses,” he said. “It’s all about having a connection with the animal. This was the first time I got thrown off. So, from that point on, I did basically everything in the film with one arm.”
Mabengeza said his divorce wreaked havoc on his tight-knit family, but that good relations were now restored.
“My mum, she was like: ‘Dude, you’re going to hell because of this divorce.’ So it was really quite a process to get to the next phase. Making this film was life-changing for me.”
Mabengeza was in the hit TV series, ER, and he played a part in Miracle at St Anna directed by Spike Lee and Invictus by Clint Eastwood.
He played slain Congolese president Patrice Lumumba in the theatre production of A Seasonin the Congo on New York’s Broadway andstarred in adverts for brands such as Amstel, Revlon and Ikea.
Mabengeza recalled how a talent scout approached him on campus at the University of Cape Town.
“So I was at varsity, living off a measly hundred bucks a month. I was so poor, thinking to myself: ‘God, I need a miracle!’ Next thing I know, this dude is like: ‘Hello. I want to take a picture of you.’ I said: ‘Why?’ And he was like: ‘I’m a scout for agencies and you have a great look – you know, like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss?’
“And I was like: ‘I don’t know who the hell that is.’ Anyway, a couple of weeks later I was shooting my first commercial; it was for Chiclets chewing gum. Then later I got a call from my agency saying I need to go to the US embassy on Monday; that I’m flying out to America because I’ve been booked on a German catalogue. So that’s how it started, I went to Miami, Dallas, San Diego …”
After his modelling career took off, Mabengeza completed his BA degree through Unisa, graduating in 2011.
“My mum was not having me not finishing my studies,” he said, laughing.
And while Sew The Winter to My Skin did not crack the Academy’s best foreign language film shortlist, it did bag Mabengeza his first international award for best lead actor at the Africa International Film Festival in Lagos, Nigeria, in December.
The film, based on the real story of a 1950s Karoo stock thief, is directed by fellow South African Jahmil XT Qubeka, who produced Of Good Report.
Sew the Winter to my Skin will open at 23 cinemas around the country on February 8.
