SA homegirl Lesley-Ann Brandt is burning up the LA TV scene as butt-kicking demon Mazikeen (aka Maze) on Lucifer – she gets real about that post-baby body, being an action hero and juggling screen time with breastfeeding duty
It's been four years since we caught up with Lesley-Ann Brandt in Cape Town. She was filming the sci-fi action thriller Painkillers – in which she played a US marine – and let us gatecrash a workout sesh with her MMA coach. Fast forward to 2018 and a lot has changed off screen – Lesley-Ann married fellow actor Chris Payne Gilbert and gave birth to her son, Kingston – but on camera, she’s still kicking ass. In our opinion, anyway. “I don’t think I’ve actually done my hardcore action role just yet,” says Lesley-Ann. “It’s definitely a goal of mine to find an action role with a strong, physical character. But I have been blessed to play versions of this in the roles I’ve had so far. Mazikeen on Lucifer is by far my favourite.”
Straight outta Cape Town
Lesley-Ann was born in Cape Town and lived there until matric before her father was offered a job in Auckland, New Zealand. The family relocated two weeks after Lesley-Ann wrote her final exam – she had not yet turned 18. “It was a tough age to make such a drastic change,” she recalls. “Leaving behind my family, friends, culture and language was rough and it took me a good couple of years to fully assimilate into Kiwi culture.”
But she was resilient and grew to love her new home, despite having to put her plans on hold. “It took us quite a while to get permanent residency so I couldn’t study without my parents having to pay international school fees, which just wasn’t an option for us,” she says.
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