When she entered the entertainment industry, fame was never on her mind. She wanted to use the platform to help her community, and she is doing just that, one production at a time.
Most of her fans fell in love with Lungelo Dhladhla when she played Gugu on SABC 1’s Gugu and Andile, a mini-series adapted from the Romeo and Juliet play by Minky Schlesinger and Lodi Matsetela. Gugu, a Zulu woman falls in love with Andile, a Xhosa man and their communities were not happy with the match.
“People always remember me from that show, and I’ve been on many shows after that. But I guess that was the peak of my acting. What made it stand out was the storyline,” Lungelo tells Drum.
Shockingly, acting was never the plan for the award-winning actress who appeared on South Africa’s hit telenovelas such as Intersextions, Soul City, Dream World, and Isithembis.
“Acting is something that I stopped a long time ago, I kind of fell into it in 2017 and it wasn’t the initial plan. Being behind the scenes is something I studied; I’ve never studied acting but what acting has done is to open doors for me,” she says.
But her first love has always been to be behind the scenes, rather than being on screen. ”I am grateful for my acting career and have no regrets of not going back on the screen but my passion is in creating the content rather than being on people's screens,” Lungelo admits.
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This is why she's gone back to her first love, producing.
"I've been more of an executive producer and producer, than I have been an actress."
She holds a Master’s degree in Local Economic Development, and her company Mindset Concepts that she co-owns with Sbu Ngobeni prides itself in creating content that touches on the social ills of the country, “anything that is here to assist, that is us. We create advocacy content,” she says.
Their production house produced Kick It, a story that has gained international recognition, putting the local film industry in a global spotlight.
The South African television production made the list of productions from 30 countries that will be viewed at the International Public Television Conference (INPUT) that will be held in Barcelona, Spain.
The SAFTA winning production highlights substance abuse in the country. Lungelo tells us more, “It’s a documentary reality shot in 2021 with the Department of Social Development about substance abuse, highlighting the problem the youth and community have with drugs. It investigates the families, and relationships that have been destroyed by drugs and the systems that the government has put into place to assist substance abuse in South Africa.”
Lungelo’s passion to delve deeper into societal ills stems from her upbringing.
Her mom was a school principal whose passion was empowering the young mind and her late father had a foundation that regrouped landowners in the community of Inanda, assisting them to access different opportunities to make their land commercial.
“My parents were community developers; they have a love for community work. Having those two people and growing under their roof, I was open to the world of social ills, and creating solutions for them,” she says.
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The documentary series receiving international recognition is a testament to her and her team that they are on the right track.
“It's ticking a box. When you are trying something or positioning yourself in a certain way you have doubts, you think that maybe people are not going to take you seriously,” she shares.
Lungelo shares that they could've created something similar to what South Africans love watching but they wanted to stay true to their craft and create something different, and it paid off. Although they never anticipated international recognition, they are over the moon.
“This is more than South Africa, this is something that other countries need to learn from. Going to Spain means there's an opportunity for any other national broadcaster to say, "can we take Kick It to play in our country." South Africa can be used to assist other countries on how we deal with substance abuse – there are things that countries are looking into SA for and gaining experience and knowledge of what we have," she adds.
