Fans of Eastern Cape-born actor, Ian Roberts, can probably thank his older brother – and an age-old family tradition- for the SA film and TV icon’s foray in to the world of acting.
For Roberts could easily have been a farmer – and given the family’s farming legacy and his love for it, he probably would have excelled at it. So it seems farming’s loss had become the world of acting and theatre’s gain.
The 72-year-old Roberts, who was in Kenton-on-Sea for a book launch-music tour recently, admits he would have probably landed up farming were it not for a course of events that found him following an acting career.
Dad, Llewellyn, was a citrus farmer in the Kat River Valley in Fort Beaufort (now KwaMaqoma) and Roberts says English tradition has it that the farm would be inherited by his older brother when his father passed away. And the rest is history as they say.
Talk of the Town’s meeting with the iconic actor rekindles memories of life on his father’s citrus farm. “As a youngster I enjoyed the farm, running up and down in the veld. In fact, I loved farming with my father growing up … ja, I really enjoyed it,” he says.
“Look, my father made sure I had a good education; I attended St Andrew’s Prep and St Andrew’s College, which exposed me to a lot of other opportunities. There you really learnt to be a scholar.”
Roberts suggests that given his exposure to creative arts at school had probably helped steer him towards an acting career. “Then followed my studies in drama at Rhodes University.”
Touring
Roberts has quite a legion of fans; it’s evident as Talk of the town sits down at Kenton’s Mm Coffee Lab to speak to him about his tour with his band, Radio Kalahari trio. The book launch was scheduled for the Nook and the music show at Red Apple.
Touring comes easily for this popular actor who now resides in the Lowveld with his partner and a set of three-year-old twins. “I love touring … I’ve always loved the road; for me it can get a bit hectic … sometimes people want signatures; and other places people want to party,” suggesting that he’s got different priorities now.
“The coastline here has always been my favourite; when I was at Rhodes we used to go down to Port Alfred and surf; and the Transkei – they are special places.”
The book Nomad by Heart is an autobiographical assignment completed over a few weeks during the Covid lockdown, when actors were forced to lay low. It features several anecdotes of happenings on and off the set. “There are a lot of funny stories of my acting career, included in there,” he says.
Our interview is interrupted several times. “Hello Sloet,” says one admirer, referring to his character, Sloet Steenkamp, in the breakthrough Afrikaans TV drama series of the late 80s about the Second Anglo-Boer war, Arende.
“Ja many people come up to me and identify me as “Sloet”, not Ian,” he says with a deep frown. Arende’s main character, Sloet is a rugged, rebellious Boer farmer who refuses to submit to the British and is eventually imprisoned on St Helena Island.
Roberts’ foray in to advertising where he shot to even bigger fame alongside Mark Anstey and the late Fats Bookholan playing Boet, Swaer and Mogae respectively, in those iconic TV Castrol adverts of the late 80s, proved a huge fillip for his career. “That paid me a lot of money actually,” he says.
Roberts believes in luck but, emphasises luck is only preceded by “hard work”. He says Rhodes University’s drama department set high standards and “there the art and skills of acting got hammered into us …”
Roberts says the Lower Albany accent had a huge role to play in the TV ad.
“I said to the director why don’t we place a platteland English accent in to the ad. He asked me: ‘what do you suggest’. “I said, well, a Lower Albany Eastern Cape accent in English … I spoke a few lines, ‘you know hey boet, hey swaer’ kinda chat, and they quite liked it,” says Roberts.
“Mark Anstey picked it up quickly and we had an identity in the beginning. Now all that knowledge and performing the role … now that comes from hard work that all started at university … so, it’s hard work that brings luck.”
‘Completely crazy’
He says his Sloet portrayal in Arende took hours of research in to the character.
“That character held the spirits and aspirations of many people … Paul C. Venter who wrote that series must be given credit for the genius of that series.
“Being English speaking I didn’t know about the Boer war. So I went back and read a book about a teacher who was captured at Paardeberg … he wrote a diary. I read it intensely and then I knew more about what it was like defending one’s homeland against an invader.
“We were young actors in 1980/81, and we were completely crazy in our efforts to become great actors. We would do anything; we would work for no money to get what we wanted in the end.
“In fact, I’ve got a cheque … I framed at one time, that I received from Space Theatre company for R8. As actors we were hunting excellence and people don’t see that.”
Roberts however feels let down by the fact that actors did not receive any royalties after the Arende series was sold to many overseas countries.
“It’s a most despicable situation that as SA actors we did not benefit … man, Arende went all over the world, including China, … imagine Sloet Steenkamp talking Chinese?”
All the other roles, among them, his portrayal of Alan Paton in Cry the Beloved, Captain Smit in Oscar award-winning Tsotsi and De Klerk were all completely different people he says – and is a reflection of Roberts’ versatility and skill as an actor.
In Cry the Beloved Country … I I learnt through my research that Alan Paton in his early life was actually an irascible teacher. So, on set, they asked me ‘why are you playing his character like that?’ Well he (Paton) was like that … you don’t just go with the flow, you must study the character properly,” he says unapologetically.
Music flows deep through Roberts’ veins; he first picked up the guitar at the age of nine and taught himself. “I played with a diverse group of people as a youngster in Fort Beaufort.”
“I’ve been working very hard on my music over the past year.”
Could he have been a famous musician then, if destiny had taken a different course?
“Well, if I had taken it (music) from the beginning, I wouldn’t have been an actor – and I didn’t want that.”
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, October 31, 2024. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
