1. What do you listen to in your car?
I listen to various types of music, depending on what's going on in my life. Sometimes Van Morrison to give me courage. Sometimes demo songs that I am developing. Other times I will listen to books that I have recorded myself.
2. What do you read first thing every morning?
I read what the ... sun looks like.
3. What's on your bedside table?
Hopefully there's nothing next to my bed. Especially no ghosts.
4. Are you still acting?
Currently my only acting is when I perform in Radio Kalahari. But that's enough!
5. Your most enjoyable role or roles so far?
It's a moving goal.
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6. How did your band, Radio Kalahari Orkes, start?
My cousin Dan Roberts was commissioned by the Boer Jew Irving Schlossberg of EMI to make a video of his song “The Crying Shame" where we three guys from the Castrol ads, Norman Anstey, Fats Bookholane and I, became the “singers". And the rest is history ...
7. Your favourite SA bands?
The crickets and frogs in the spring, and the bulbuls, hadedas and shy colies (mousebirds) in the winter.
8. Is there anyone you would still like to work with?
I would love to make a movie with my daughter Cara. Where I direct ... and maybe play a minor role.
9. What is Nomad Heart, your book that has just been published, about?
It's a memoir, so it's about my life so far.
10. What would you wish for, if you knew the answer was yes?
That I could buy back the family farm in the Eastern Cape, lock, stock and barrel ...
11. What is your pet hate?
My pet hate is people who screw up the peace of nature with bad music.
12. Guilty pleasure?
My guilty pleasure was to sit in the same corner of the same bar every night and keep a close eye on people and all their ways. These days I never do that, because people recognise me throughout the country.
13. What do you find sexy?
An unusual woman with unusual clothes, with an unusual laugh, and a case of unusual beer ...
14. Describe your ideal day?
If I can get a cup of high-quality coffee, that's the perfect start to any day. Then it's “hello hello" to my loved ones. Usually I drive them to the Montessori school. Then to sit and write with good “writing" music and more coffee, and ginger rusks, and to go for a walk later on, somewhere in the mountains. If I'm at a warm sea (in other words far from the Cape), I'll always go skinny-dipping in the pools and bodysurfing in the waves. Sometimes I will take my loved ones with me, so that they can also experience nature. In the evening it would be practicing some music and watching TV. And sipping more coffee. This is an ideal day under my current circumstances, because I have a house, a wife and two five-year old kids.
15. If you could invite three people to dinner, who would it be? And where?
These days my home is very busy, and full of children's hustle and bustle in the evenings. So the best would be to eat at a restaurant with the three chosen ones. One would be a movie producer who has a budget for my next movie in his pocket. The other would be Francoinette le Roberts (the beloved mother of my children). The third guest would probably be my cousin Dan Roberts, who will check that the producer doesn't talk shit.
16. If you could choose again, would you do the same?
If I could choose again, in other words after that meal, I would choose two druggies from the streets of Lydenburg with Jacob Zuma. I would like to find out, while we're eating, what it is that scares them so much.
17. Your most disastrous performance?
When I had to perform on stage alone in the lobby of the Nico Malan Theatre in 1980, reacting to a voice-over done by actress Mary Dreyer. I didn't know what I was doing, and neither did the audience. Afterwards the critics had a field day ...
18. Your favourite vacation spot.
It's a secret; I want to keep it people-free. All I can say is: It's on the coast.
19. If you could say something to Trump, what would it be?
Werner Herzog, the genius German movie maker, said: “The greatest threat to true creativity is Political Correctness." I would say: “Donald, just like you, I know politicians suck. It's almost impossible to maintain originality, and trueness to oneself. But, like the movie director Dirk de Villiers always used to say to an actor who was about to perform a dangerous stunt: GOOD LUCK, HEY!!!"
20. Your favourite Christmas song?
“Jingle Bells".
21. Your favourite Afrikaans song?
“Daar's 'n wind wat waai, soos hy nou daar waai. Hy waai my jas teen 'n taaibos vas. Hy waai my hier en hy waai my daar; hy waai my hare sommer deurmekaar." Then Dan Roberts' and Rian Malan's song “Reën".
22. What were you like as a child?
Apart-ish from the usual course of affairs.
23. Your favourite toy as a child?
My motorcycle, a German 50cc “help-my-trap" that I bought from a teacher at St Andrews Prep who was really tough – I bought it for R40 when I was 10. Also the go-kart my father built for me; it ran with a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine.
24. If there is one book that you can recommend to everyone to read?
Lion of the West, the book about Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey, written by Johannes Meintjies.
25. What do you regret?
Just some things that happened, and about which I cry every now and then.
26. What are you looking forward to?
To make the movies that I have written.
Watch: A blast from the past.
♦ VWB ♦
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