If you've seen the snazzy, filmic trailers on SABC3 you'll know that tonight's the premiere night of the new medical series Jozi-H.
To get in the groove for it I caught up with Tumisho Masha while he was at the hairdresser getting a haircut yesterday. A brush-cut to be exact.
Tumisho plays Dr. Zanemvula "Zane" Jara who's a trauma surgeon at Jozi Hospital and one of the starring characters in the show.
Amidst all the mirrors and hovering clippers I made it my mission to use the vulnerable position Tumisho was in to trick him into giving out as much info that he shouldn't as possible.
Tashi: How did you get the role of Dr Zane?
Tumisho: Wow - what happened was, I was called to the auditions for this new medical drama and I thought, “Cool, sounds cool, I’ll go through ‘cos my agent told me about it,” but I was really sceptical ‘cos you know ... hospital dramas - I didn’t wanna do another one of those hospital dramas that we see all the time in South Africa but I thought “Let me just see what’s going on”.
So I got there and Mfundi Vundla was there and another one of the producers - Tony – he’s from Britain, and Wheeler, the Canadian director was there - and there was something about the script that made me realise, “You know, the dialogue’s pretty good.” Then I got very excited and started taking it very seriously.
Fortunately I guess they realised that and they called me back for a couple of callbacks and they told me that I had the part. But you never have the part until someone’s signed a contract and they still had to find an Ingrid.
It can be very tense when you keep going back to auditions. You’re like: “Either I’m not doing this right or you guys just like seeing my face here.” It’s hard, I hate the auditioning process.
I then auditioned with all these ladies in Jo’burg and I was like, “Okay, we’ll see what happens,” and next thing I’m on set and
Thami Ngubeni's playing Ingrid, which was a pleasant surprise ‘cos I’ve never worked with her before.
Tashi: Was Thami at one of the auditions you went to?
Tumisho: No, she had to audition in Cape Town.
Tashi: How long did it take to film the show?
Tumisho: We filmed for six months. We shot 13 episodes in six months and what’s funny is I produced
Izoso Connection on SABC1 - also 13 episodes - and we shot that in six weeks. (
Laughs)
Tashi: Apparently all the actors did major research before filming that involved you hanging out at Jozi hospital’s trauma department on a Friday night at the end of the month.
Tumisho: Yes we used to go from trauma department to trauma department and this guy rolls in, he’d been shot. They had to do one of the procedures we have to do on Jozi-H where they literally cut his chest open, they took out a hammer and a chisel, opened up his ribs and were massaging his
heart.Tashi: *
Laughs hysterically*
Tumisho: I was like, “Okay, that’s pretty cool.”
Tashi: I take it from your response that you obviously 'do' blood and gore well?
Tumisho: To see that - I mean, I wouldn’t want to see that happen to anybody ‘cos it is quite traumatic. When they have to open up your chest and message your heart by hand, things are not looking great, you know what I mean.
Tashi: He obviously came out of it and they saved him.
Tumisho: Well unfortunately he actually ended up dying.
Tashi: Oh no, *
Laughs*. (I just couldn’t stop laughing for some reason.)
Tumisho: Seeing the doctors respond to someone dying on your table...
Tashi: It must have given you huge insight into the role.
Tumisho: It did, we saw that “This is what it’s like to be a doctor, “ and to see that kind of disappointment. As an actor a disappointment is not a life and death situation - it’s really just something didn’t work out: you didn’t get the part or the show did terribly. But with doctors it is life and death.
Tashi: What was the most challenging thing about acting in the show?
Tumisho: Just that, getting under the skin of people who have to deal with this sort of thing every day and make it look like it’s everyday. Make it look like - if somebody dies, my life still has to continue. Understand that it’s a job, like any other job, you’re not supposed to take it home with you.
Playing the realism of it - doctors don’t run around screaming and shouting, they’re very calm and they know what they’re doing and they never shout. Unless it’s very serious. When I saw what they went through I was very glad not to be a doctor.
Tashi: So if you were a doctor you wouldn’t respond to situations in the same way as Zane does?
Tumisho: Definitely, I’d take it very personally. I wouldn’t be equipped to deal with it like he does. He’s incredibly focused and not one to get too emotional about anything. I’ve met a couple of doctors like that. He never allows his job to mess with who he is.
Tashi: What was the most thrilling thing about filming the show?
Tumisho: All the operation and trauma scenes and the part when I got shot.
Tashi: Who’s your fave character in the show - besides you of course?
Tumisho: The doctor who’s played by
Vincent Walsh - Russell Monseur. He was a no nonsense kind of doctor, I liked that about him. He’s very *roars wildy*.
Tashi: What was your fave line that you had say across the series?
Tumisho: It was definitely when Ingrid says, “Why don’t you treat me like the other interns?” and I answer: “Well, none of the other interns has her silk teddy in my sock drawer.”
I practiced that for months and months.
Tashi: You filmed for six months so I refuse to believe that nothing juicy happened behind the scenes. What were the romances? Were there fights?
Tumisho: Ah! - you don’t want me to ever work again. You know, I must be honest - we were a very tight bunch of people. The juiciest thing that ever happened was, one night, we all went to a soccer game and that evening we went to a party and hehehe, let me just put it this way - there were times when we could get very hedonistic. Those Hollywood guys had nothing on us in terms of having a party.
Tashi: Oh really? I’m thinking strip poker... *actually thinking orgies*
Tumisho: I never said strip poker.
Tashi: So you just stripped, you didn’t play poker?
Tumisho: Ha, no we didn’t have time to talk.
Tashi: With the big budget of the show your set-up was very fancy - you all had your own trailers and stuff apparently.
Tumisho: Yes, when we out on the road and we each got our own dressing room when filming on set.
Tashi: Yes, so you had all this stuff which means you must have been paid tons of money to do the show. Did you?
Tumisho: Well, with a budget of 100-million rand, you’re certainly gonna be paid better than doing a smallish, unknown show, you know what I’m saying?
Tashi: Yes I do. I always ask actors: “What did you get paid?” and no-one (except
Khanyi Mbau) will ever tell me.
Tumisho: Well, you know I would hate to tell you and let everyone know how much I’m getting paid then that’s how much they’ll try to get paid next time. Or maybe they’ll go” Eish, you earn nothing.” Finding out you got paid the most is okay, even if it’s not that great, but finding out you got paid the least is shocking.
Tashi: Yes, that’s what happened with Grey’s Anatomy cast when Katherine Heigl found out was she was getting paid the least of everyone. It caused masses of chaos amongst them. What’s your diagnosis regards what you’re gonna be getting up to next?
Tumisho: I’m waiting to see what’s gonna happen but I do want to do something fun. I’d like to do a comedy film. As far as television is concerned, I’m just gonna do
Top Billing.
I really don’t want to do much more on TV. I do want to do more film and more comedy - whether it’s a Skop, Skiet en Donder, I really want to do one of those or any other comdey but defnitely not another tough, political movie.
Tashi: Why no more TV?
Tumisho: From all the international films I’ve done and now after Jozi-H, I realised that the way we work in television at the moment isn’t conducive for growth because of our small and limited budgets and things always seem to be the same. So I’m not really interested in doing another show on SABC unless it’s of the standard of Jozi-H.
Most people in South Africa, we watch our shows and we snigger at them because they’re so bad. As much as producers can try and directors can be world class, on Jozi-H I learnt that unless people put money where their mouth is, all we’ll do is just talk abut the shows we can do but never do them.
As it is, SABC isn’t looking at increasing budgets but dropping them, so I refuse to do another drama unless it’s done properly.
Tashi: I fully agree. I don’t know why they don’t just do fewer shows and put more money into each.
Tumisho: That might be a way of doing it but I also think it’s about saying, “Look, the SABC’s a government establishment, they don’t have to make 300-million profit every year.” Can’t they rather be happy with making 200-million and spend the extra 100-million on making the shows they have better?
Tashi: Where will you be when the first episode of Jozi-H goes out tonight and who will you be watching with?
Tumisho: Definitely with my family. I’m gonna bring the whole family around and we’ll all gonna sit together and watch it on TV. I can’t wait for them to see it.
Tashi: How do you feel watching yourself?
Tumisho: Generally unhappy about the way I look.
Tashi: Really?
Tumisho: I do think I have some talent as an actor, I just don’t like the way I look. In my mind I think I look like someone else and I’m always surprised that I still look like me. I get slightly disappointed that I still look like me.
EndsOnce we'd finished I spent 20 minutes trying to coerce Tumisho's middle name out of him. In some of the movies he's been in he's credited as Tumisho K. Masha and I wanted to know what the K stands for, but he didn't want to tell me, saying he wanted to keep it secret.
Eventually he realised that there was no ways he was gonna get rid of me until I knew and revealed that it's
Kgoloane - and then spent forever trying to help me pronounce it properly.
*
Ends again with Tumisho repeating his middle name over and over again and me trying to.*
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You can catch Tumisho in Jozi-H tonight (Thursday 26 April) on SABC3, at 20h31.
To find out more about the characters and their back stories, visit TVSA's
Jozi-H mini-site.
Also, find out more about Tumisho by viewing his
TVSA Actor Profile.