ACTOR Hlomla Dandala has opened up about why he’s leaving The River.
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, he said it was time because as an actor, he couldn’t in one character for many years.
Hlomla’s exit was announced last month by M-Net.
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He and two other actors, Lawrence Maleka and Tango Ncetezo, who play Zolani and Paulina, respectively, won’t be returning for the next season.
Speaking about the exit, he said he started growing apart from his character, Zweli Dikana.
“It was time. Generally, what tends to happen with any career is that if you stay in any character for long enough, it’s difficult to then pivot away from it or to be perceived in any other way,” he said.
“In The River, I was happy with the character for a long time and then after a while, we started growing further and further apart in terms of creativity and then it reached a point where I said ‘look, I need to manage my career’. And part of that is I don’t want to get locked into a situation that I really don’t want to be in long term. It starts to damage your future.”
Hlomla said he’s happy the producers of the show understood why he left.
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“The producers were generous enough in that they understood what I was saying. They were caught between a rock and a hard place, in that the structure of the show requires that one is duped (Zweli) and the other one is duping (Lindiwe) eternally, for the structure of the show,” he said.
“Now, you have an actor who’s saying listen, I can’t be duped for five years straight. It starts to comment on me as an actor and it starts to affect my other work and it was just one of those.”
He also spoke about his previous roles, his career spanning over 30 years, as well as starring on the Netflix series, Justice Served.
