She auditioned for a role which meant that her character and her husband spoke different languages, and the barrier was tough to navigate at the beginning.
Actress Lungile Duma ended up adjusting so well that she ended up falling in love with a Sotho speaking man even in real life.
She played Zithulele on Adulting. She was the doting wife to the philandering Mpho (played by Thabiso Rammusi).
Zithulele endured a lot of pain in her marriage with Mpho and Lungile says it was learning experience for her because she was unmarried and did not have children when she shot Adulting.
“I was just a girl from emakhaya, eKwaZulu-Natal, and I had never spoken Sesotho before and now I was expected to communicate with someone who is fluent. When Thabiso would speak, I had to rely on the script because I had no idea what he was saying. The script is in English and we would interpret it in our own languages. I had to learn fast. Kea bua jwanong (I can speak now),” she laughs.
Lungile (29) is now taking some much-needed time away from the industry so that she can plan her wedding.
“I’m getting married!” she exclaims.
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“I am thinking of taking two or three months away to plan the wedding. Being on set all day is no small feat, because sometimes you are only free on Sundays. Planning a wedding can be demanding, so I want to give my all to it. Mina ngiyintombi yasemakhaya (I am a village girl) so I do not want a white wedding, I would like to have a modern-traditional wedding.”
And who is the lucky man who has snatched her out of the market?
“He’s not an industry guy. He is in corporate. A suit-and-tie kind of guy.”
She says she met him after she had an audition in Rosebank.
“I felt hungry and went to the nearest mall for food. While I was waiting for my order, he came up to me and asked if he could introduce himself and I declined. But he persisted. What melted my heart was how respectful he was, and we ended up chatting.”
They ended up exchanging numbers.
She was not in a relationship when she was shooting season one of Adulting, but she spoke to her husband-to-be about the explicit nature of the show when she was shooting season two.
“He is really a modern man and he understood. He just said as long as my bum and boobs were not going to be on screen it would be fine. As an actress, I have my own boundaries and thankfully they aligned with his. I spoke with the intimacy coach and we were good.”
Now she is about to marry the man of her dreams and become Mrs Mahlangu.
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“My in-laws SeSotho all the way and I am excited about the journey I am about to start. My upbringing was not the easiest. My parents were not married to each other, but they married other people and had their own families that I was not part of.
“I was raised by my grandmother, and she made sure I had everything. And I vowed to myself that I would never have kids before marriage, because I did not want them to experience what I did. I am excited and I am in disbelief that, in him, I am getting everything I have ever wanted in a man. The only sad part is that my grandmother passed away in June last year and is not part of this whole process. This is the first time I have made such a big decision without her.”
