Patience Pays Off - Samuel
The financial challenges he faced while he was a self-sponsored student at the University of Arts in Pretoria did not stop him from reaching his dream of becoming an actor. The Mmadinare native, Modisaemang Samuel Koboa said he came back home from South Africa where in 2001 he started his acting career after he met a Zimbabwean friend. He passionately worked with different people like Joel Keitumele aka Ntsoro, former Member of Parliament for Thamaga constituency Mr Mabeo and others in the production although they went through financial challenges. Samuel said thus far they shot about 10 movie and TV dramas, but only 4 were successfully produced. He was acting as Mr Robbertson (a conman and irresponsible father) on Colours TV drama and that was in 2018, but before 2018 he played as Detective Joseph on a movie called Chief, in 2019 he did Maele (season1) as Mr Joseph a business village Chief with 3 wives and 12 children and played Mr Palai, a loving husband to his business woman on Pillars (season 2 and 3). Colours Drama played for about six months with 26 episodes on Botswana Television and was bought by Moja on DSTV. Pillars played on Now TV from season 1 to season 3, it was 13 episodes, and it also played on Upic TV as well. As that is not enough Modisaemang is currently featuring on another 2 TV dramas The Card Holders season 1&2 and THE STAR season 2 which are still being shot in Thamaga and Gaborone respectively.
As an actor, his opinion on how things should be done to get the film industry operate better in Botswana, Modisaemang suggests that the government should put a huge amount of cash into film industry so that actors can also benefit because currently only the producers are benefiting.
“Actors don’t benefit at all because they are paid peanuts. For instance, you’ll find that about 10 actors share 250 thousand from the P1.5 million tender, this shows that actors are being exploited but only producers are benefiting a lot of money,” he said.
When asked what he likes about his acting career nevertheless he mentioned that it doesn’t have money, Modisaemang replied, “This is a very good interesting question but like I said, acting works for me because I am doing it with passion and since I know a lot of people, I never go for auditions but I always get connected and people always call and recommend me to do acting anywhere.”
On his opinion about the impact of film industry in the economy of the country, Samuel said that Botswana has a lot of talent but only if the government can shoot up a lot of money in this industry or help the graduates to start their own productions locally and be able to employ other Batswana so that the film industry grows and help boost the country’s economy. “Even private companies can help those graduates, we have a lot of talent coming from film schools like AFDA who are qualified and ready to conquer the film industry, but they don’t have start-up capital,” he added.
It’s funny that Samuel didn’t have an inspiration to become an actor. Although he is an actor and scriptwriter, when he grew up he didn’t like reading nor watching movies but from nowhere, he found himself in the film industry. Modisaemang advices his fellow actors by saying, “Patience pays, at times you can be used by producers for a long time, but at the end someone will come scouting for you and your patience will pay off. Look at Sharon Seno who plays as Marang on Muvhango, see where she is right now, she has crossed the borders and doing quite well but she started off on Colours.” Guess what else Modisaemang does, he keeps himself busy by buying and selling madila across Gaborone, Tlokweng and Mogoditshane. According to him the business is doing quiet good since its inception.
Like his page on Facebook: Reflexions Drama series.
Duncan Sebeso