Bio
Danielle Retief is a South African actress, singer and dancer best known for her role as Marelie Beukes in the kykNET drama series Song vir Katryn, from 2003-2004.
Danielle was born and raised in Johannesburg and grew up in the industry (with filmmakers and actors for parents and a grandfather), but her first lead role - as a girl who turns her brother into an egg in the 2001 SABC production My Brother the Egg - was the proof that she belonged there.
She went on to play little sister, Marelie, in two seasons of the kykNET series Song vir Katryn and also featured in a small role on 7de Laan.
Phoebe in As You Like It, Ophelia in Hamlet and Elana in Van Aardes van Grootoor are some of her theatre credits. Her involvement in numerous student films has gained her acting, as well as writing experience.
She describes her play and film writing style as a blend of frenzied British comedy and geeky calamity.
She graduated high school in 2009 with distinctions in all nine of her subjects ranging from science and mathematics to English and art.
Literature, sketching, design, music, singing and capturing moments through photography are only some of her hobbies and her love of languages and different cultures resulted in her taking on French in 2010 to add to her fluent English and Afrikaans. She would also, one day, love to communicate with the Spanish, Italian and German worlds.
Dance is her exercise of choice and she finds joy in making music herself and has studied classical piano through UNISA. She is also a self-taught acoustic guitar player.
In 2020 she returned to 7de Laan, this time in the recurring role of Nikki Basson, the street-smart, sassy daughter of DeWet Basson, who is the apple of his eye. Her first appearance was on Monday 10 February, 2020.