Bio
Phumzile is a South African actress who was bitten by the performing bug at a young age, starting hip hop dancing lessons with Kim Fields at age three, while attending Rivonia nursery school.
Her television debut was in a Fizz Pop advertisement when she was six, and featured as a dancer on a kiddies show on eTV when the channel first launched.
She has also appeared as a guest on YOTV Wildroom.
Phumi continued training under Kim Fields until 2004, being awarded the Dancer of the Year trophy for the studio in that year.
In 2004 Phumi travelled with a group of Kim Fields dancers to participate in the Hip Hop world championships in Barcelona, Spain. The group returned to South Africa with two gold medals.
Phumi joined popular Hip Hop group CLINCH at the start of 2005.
Phumi went to St Mary's School for Girls in Waverley, taking Mathematics, Physical Science, Drama, English, Geography and Zulu as her high school subjects.
Her first language is English but she also speaks Zulu well. She can understand but not converse in Sotho.
Her role as presenter on SABC3's Cooking Magic was her first major television appearance.
Phumi relocated to America to pursue her acting career and in 2017 she played the role of Sharise, assistant to Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo) in The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight.
In 2018 she landed the role of Antoinetta “Akers” Kerson in the sixth season of the Netflix comedy-drama Orange Is the New Black. She appears in nine episodes of the season.