You Should Always Dream

Actor Presley Chweneyagae knows all about the school of hard knocks – and can proudly say he pushed through when times were tough

- Leroy Manyaka & Sibulele Lurewana

PRESSURE to be perfect. That’s what he lived with for years after starring in one of the most successful movies ever to come out of South Africa.

Presley Chweneyagae was the Tsotsi in Tsotsi, the movie that won the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2006 and made household names of the leading actors.

Presley was just 21 years old then and had the world at his feet – but he would soon learn instant fame could be more of a curse than a blessing.

That pressure to be perfect was a major challenge and would make him doubt himself. Would he disappoint his fans if he didn’t live up to their expectations? Would the roles dry up? And would people forget about him?

The now 33-year-old actor has happily put those dark times behind him. Presley can be seen in Mzansi Magic’s iNumber Number, a series based on the movie of the same name (marketed overseas as Avenged).

The show – and the movie – is about street warfare and the fight for law and order. Presley plays undercover cop Shoes, bringing a similar mix of grit and vulnerability to the character as he did to his role as Tsotsi.

We meet the actor at Pretoria’s Menlyn Boutique Hotel and, over a glass of orange juice, he tells us how he’s enjoying being back on TV.

“It can be a bit fast at times – with film it’s a much slower process – but it’s been interesting,” he says.

The last time he was on the small screen was when he played a poet in When We Were Black in the heady days after the Tsotsi explosion.

He jumped at the chance to play Shoes, he says – not only for the challenge the role presented but because both his parents are police officers and he knows quite a lot about the cop business.