She was four the one and only time she saw him perform live.
Young and unaware of his star power, she rushed to the front of the crowd to see what was happening, and she could remember "the aunties going crazy".
It was only when she was older that she realised what she had witnessed.
Right now, four-year-old Lorraine Moropa would be punching the air, bouncing up and down on the couch, and beaming with pride if she saw what her older self was working on.
Actress and performer Lorraine Moropa plays Mandoza's wife in the new biopic honouring his life, Nkalakatha: The Life of Mandoza, which premieres on BET on Wednesday, 16 August.
She's still excited about being chosen for this role.
This evening she says she will be on her couch watching the end product.
“I was 4 years old when Mandoza released Nkalathatha, I was very young. However, I still remember the day, we were at Wild Water with my family During the December vibe, my family was having a braai with other people. Those public braais were a big thing back in the day. At around 5pm everyone was anticipating his performance because the place closes at 6pm. He then came to the stage, I didn’t know it was him, I just remember everyone just anticipating that he was about to perform, and we all ran to the mini stage,” she recalls.
Read more | Mandoza's wife Mpho Tshabalala on healing and letting people in on her husband's story
“We got to the front, then I saw this guy who was on stage, singing and dancing shirtless and the aunties were going crazy. I didn’t know who he was back then, but I could tell that he is a superstar, that is the only performance of his that I was fortunate enough to witness at the time.”
19 years later she was faced with change. She had just wrapped Mzansi Magic’s The Queen, where she played Olerato.
“When I got the call to audition for the biopic, I was in a production break just recuperating, attending auditions. One day I got a call from my agent, she told me that I was being called to audition for a character. When I read the character brief, she wasn’t a lead, I was auditioning to be Mpho’s aunt, I prepared like my life was depending on it. When I auditioned, the casting director was impressed and told me that they had just wrapped up auditioning for the role of Mpho and another lead but [they] wanted to see me auditioned for Mpho.”
When she was given the script so that she could prepare for the role, she says it didn’t click who Mpho was and the role she played in the biopic. She just read about a young girl, and it was all metaphoric but as an actor, she says she brought her A-game.
“I prepared for five minutes, went inside and the casting director was impressed. I got a call back and that is when I experimented with different Mandozas, [that's] when it clicked the biopic was about Mandoza, they used his first name Thembinkosi. I clicked on what it was that I was doing, and what was expected of me, and then the magnitude of the role sunk in. It then started to get intense and [I] had the pressure because we were now doing chemistry checks. Later I got a call that I got the role, this was an interesting role.”
Other actors ask around when they learn about the world of the character they are playing. Lorraine on the other hand asked if Mandoza’s wife could take her where he was laid to rest so that she could see and feel Mpho’s journey.
Read more | ‘People will say that I have anger issues after watching Mandoza biopic, but that’s a compliment’
“I asked that because I wanted to see life through Mpho’s lens. When I approached her, she was keen that Wiseman joined us and that was after he proposed that we pray before we start with production. That set the tone, I feel it was the most dignified thing we’ve ever done because we are telling the life story of a person that existed before. There is spirituality that is involved that we need to honor and respect, regardless of our spiritual beliefs. I went there with my bible and prayed, Mpho allowed us the grace to go there and pray.”
She is no stranger to playing love stories, and this specific love story was witnessed and seen by many. Though Mandoza’s wife on set guided her, she says she was sometimes under pressure to deliver because this is a well-known couple.
“It was very important on my end to find ways to tell the story, as truthful and vulnerable as I could. The luxury that I think I had was Mpho’s presence on set because, in as much as I thought I knew what I was bringing into the scene, I would constantly go and find out how she felt on a certain day when some events happened. These characters were sensitive, the story had to be told from the point of honesty.”
Lorraine says she has gained a second family and has learned a lot about being selfless in a relationship when two people have common goals and a relationship to work.
“I see how they fought for love, I reckoned because he was a superstar, he was the type of person to buy love. But their love was rooted in honesty; they had hard times but they both gave love a fair chance. They were selfless until their common goal shifted then they both became selfish at some point.”
