He brings to life the character of Daniel Le Roux: a sweet caring guy who has a huge passion for animals and will do anything to make sure his family is taken care of. One would say he is the ideal guy that any woman would want as a husband. This is none other than actor/ director /singer/dancer: Stephen van Niekerk.
To many Isidingo fans he is known as Daniel, the game ranger. A guy who has a very complicated relationship with the damaged Farrow Bornman (Odelle De Wet), and the sweetest of the Le Roux boys. The good side of his evil brother Benjamin (Arno Marais).
“I must say I enjoy being on the show. Isidingo is the only soap in this country that allows you, as an actor, to enjoy your performance, it's raw natural and it's fun,” he says laughing.
Stephen admits that having to be in those Bokamoso Game Ranger outfits can be a bit dull as other characters always wear nice stuff, but it is also good when he is filming many scenes in a day. It means fewer wardrobe changes for him.
Van Niekerk is an amazing actor who understands the duty that an actor has to the script and his audience. “On Isidingo I play a very shy guy, some might say a boring character, but I like the fact that he has now been given a challenge that pushes him to a much better and interesting place in his life. Without giving the storyline away, I think what we are filming now is a side of Daniel that viewers did not expect.”
The acting industry is a very unstable and unpredictable - some actors go for months, even years, without any pay. Van Niekerk tells the story of how he landed up in this cutthroat industry: “I didn’t actually have love for acting. I wanted to do medicine, but I was a very shy kid so one day I went for my interview for Homeopathy, and they said to me 'you too shy and can’t really hold a conversation.' So my dad suggested that I study drama to build up my confidence, and I fell in love with acting.”
For most kids who want to get into the film and TV world, it is a mission, especially when it comes to convincing their parents. They tell them of how unstable the career is “my dad didn’t think that I’d become an actor. He just wanted me to do it for a year and then back to medicine, but I just couldn’t stop what I started.”
Stephen in Home Affairs
Stephen is a no stranger to SA television. He has had numerous roles in different productions to date, including the hit SABC 1 drama Home Affairs where he played the role of Daniel, an abusive lover and drug addict.
On the show he was married to a girl named Cherise (Therese Banade) whom he was constantly using as a punching bag, when not forcing himself on her sexually.
“Of all the characters I’ve played to date he was the most challenging one ever. You know, as an actor you cannot ever judge the character you play, you are the character. That was very difficult to do with this character because he did joh man some very hectic stuff, stuff that I am totally against.”
One scene that Steph had to portray on the show was one of Daniel raping his five-month pregnant wife and then forcing her to do drugs. Van Niekerk says what helped him in those hectic rape scenes was having a safe actor and director, people whom he had built a lot of trust with.
In the society we live in today such things happen daily. Women, men and children are abused every minute of every single day. Abuse is a very big word with a meaning equal the size.
“For me abuse is a blatant disregard to any other human being. It doesn’t only end at being abusive to your partner alone, if you're in traffic and you swear at someone, that’s abuse. If you walk past a person and they smile and greet you, you don’t return the favour, that is abuse.”
“Even people who have a lower status, if they always play the victim, then that is abusing the situation.”
We live in interesting times of evolving technology and even more interesting and dramatic politics. “South Africans are very interesting and well meaning people. One thing that I really hate about us Mzansi citizens is how selfish we can become, we think of no-one else but ourselves and to hell with the other person.”
We all have seen and heard all the things that our leaders have been saying to the world, each other and us Mzansi people.
Our politics have sure been interesting to watch, one that every SA citizen would agree is a man who has made news more than any other politician, the one and only ANCYL leader Julius Malema. “I got two views on the guy: He’s a very controversial person, somebody who attracts attention and I think he is using that attention poorly.
"If he had decent things to say and wasn’t just shooting his mouth off all the time, he would be a very powerful person to have in a position where if he was giving the right message, he would be very influential in bettering the country”
“Two: I just don’t think there’s a filter between his brain and his mouth. He just says things, yes he says them passionately. I don’t think he thinks about what he’s saying. And he fights so strong and so hard, that’s admirable. If you could get other people that take him as serious as he takes himself, and he said the right things. Then we’d have a great leader.”
Van Niekerk is not only a TV actor, he is also - like many SA artists - a stage performer. He recently starred in a play at the Johannesburg Theatre called Doobie Doobies with Isidingo co-star Robert Whitehead (Barker Haines), and his stage career includes numerous productions which include: 'Hair - the Musical', 'Debbie Does Dallas' and his TV work includes Snitch, Dit Wat Storm Is, and canned M-Net soapie Egoli.
• CATCH STEPHEN VAN NIEKERK (DANIEL LE ROUX) ON ISIDINGO MON-FRI @18:30 SABC 3