Kgomotso Christopher made her final appearance on Isidingo last month and today TVSA can reveal that she's leapt to Scandal! in a major new role.
She's literally taking over Masasa Mbangeni's screen time once Thembeka leaves the show. Thembeka makes her final exit on Friday, 27 May and Kgomotso arrives in late June in the role of Yvonne Thebe, Naledi's mother and Hector's ex-wife.
TVSA spoke to Scandal! show runner
Isle van Hemert who dished the insider deets on what we can expect from her. According to Ilse: "She comes in as a very seductive, sweet, loving mother who was wronged and who's made mistakes in her life and is hoping for forgiveness but we soon realise that behind the facade of feminine vulnerablity, she's actually a very calculating, manipulative woman."
Ilse went on to explain that her dark streak is very different to Thembeka's because Thembeka's has been born out of wanting to protect her love whereas Yvonne's is calculated. So calculated that she's determined never to work a day in her life.
She's a high class, kept woman who targets men to get them to look after her but she doesn't necessarily give them anything back. She strings them along and keeps them thinking that they may get a pay-off one day.
Which Hector never got because they're so estranged he banished her from his house.
Of course one of juiciest aspects to Yvonne is the casting of Kgomotso so close to her Isidingo exit. We pried for details and Ilse revealed that the reason they cast her was because she answered all of the show's questions, particularly in relation to their search for a perfectly suited Sotho speaking actress.
The production wanted to reward the soapie's Sotho speaking audiences for their loyalty and decided that the show needed a dominant Sotho speaking character. Hector and Naledi don't speak it much because they're model C/private school characters so Yvonne was identified as a character who could increase Sotho on the show and the search began for actresses.
The show had to find someone who met all of the requirements and discovered there were very few actresses who did. Even though Kgomotso's younger than Yvonne - Yvonne's in her 40s whereas Kgomotso's in her 30s - they felt that she's still old enough to play Naledi's mother, she has the looks and she's fluent in Sotho.
"When we heard that Kgomotso had left Isidingo we were delighted," Ilse told us. "We thought: 'That's perfect, answers all our questions.'"
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