Playing Pretend

EDWAIN STEENKAMP spends a day with JULIA ANASTASOPOULOS, the woman who invented the ebullient Suzelle DIY and trendy bride-to-be Tali Babes, and discovers she is anything but predictable…

- Edwain Steenkamp

It seems Julia Anastasopoulos was destined to play pretend. ‘I spent a lot of my childhood in my imagination. I was always playing imaginary games and taking part in makebelieve stories,’ she tells me. We’re at Sketchbook Studios, in Cape Town, which Julia owns with her husband, Ari Kruger. It looks exactly the way you’d expect it to – imagination made manifest.

Julia is surrounded by sequins, ribbons, props and bold, bright furniture, but is dressed in a simple black T-shirt and jeans, bare-faced, with her blonde locks tied up in a messy bun. Despite playing her characters on YouTube and Instagram so convincingly, in real life she is nothing like either of them. She’s soft-spoken, almost reserved, as she makes a round of coffees in the studio kitchen.

It’s impressive how much Julia and Ari have achieved together in a handful of years, from a short video they thought wouldn’t amount to anything, to creating one of South Africa’s best-loved entertainment personalities. Listening to Julia, I can’t help but appreciate the carefully considered and intellectual way she approaches her craft, and how she’s mastered her comedy.

‘Suzelle has been able to bring so many people together, across cultures and from all walks of life; her audience is both huge and varied,’ Julia says. ‘I think this has a lot to do with the fact that she is neither political nor sexual. Because of this, South Africans find immense relief in her comedy.’