From surviving a real hijacking to mastering Netflix’s most talked-about villain, meet the actor behind Jonas.
Katlego Sekhu
Sdumo Mtshali plays Jonas in Netflix’s The Polygamist, but the man behind the role has a story that runs far deeper than the character.
Here are five things you probably did not know about him.
He survived a real hijacking, and used it to make a scene believable.
Years ago, Mtshali was locked in the boot of a car during a hijacking while his captors searched for the vehicle’s tracker. He ended up having a calm conversation with the men holding him, an experience he later drew on directly while filming a kidnapping scene for one of his projects. He told his director and co-actors plainly that if the scene did not feel true to what he had actually lived through, they might as well cut it.
A teacher forced him into his first-ever stage role
As a child, Mtshali refused to audition for a school production of Robin Hood Men in tights, partly because he did not want to wear tights. A teacher overruled him anyway. He did the role, the audience reacted, and that single performance is the moment he traces his entire acting career back to.
He once danced in a full pirate costume as a theme park mascot in Durban.
Long before his breakout role on Class Act, Mtshali spent six months working as a mascot at a children’s theme park, performing pirate-themed skits in full costume through Durban’s heat and humidity. He does not look back on it with embarrassment. He treats it as one more rung on a long ladder.
For The Polygamist, he refuses to let previous villain roles bleed into a new one.
Discussing his role as Jonas, Mtshali acknowledged the character carries shades similar to a past villain he has played, but said he deliberately resists letting one character influence another, since doing so “diminishes” both.
He sees playing Jonas as a deliberate challenge aimed at black men specifically.
Mtshali described the responsibility of the role as holding up a mirror to men society already celebrates, politicians, athletes, actors, asking audiences to recognise that “not everything is green on the other side” for men who appear successful from the outside looking in.
The Polygamist is streaming now on Netflix.
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