Behind high pink walls actor Arnold Vosloo sits at a white cast-iron table in the perfectly manicured garden of his family’s Alberton home. Load-shedding has just kicked in and the sound of birds chirping is drowned out by the hum of a generator.
It’s 10am, tea time for the Vosloos. Older sister Nadia serves tea in an antique pink and gold porcelain set. The rooibos tea is followed by cocktail sausage rolls, mini lemon meringue and peppermint crisp tarts.
Vosloo leans back, smiles and says: “That’s a thing in this household. At 10 o’clock my sister always serves tea with cookies and it’s a little guilty pleasure of mine. My sister’s also quite the cook. So I’ve already put on five pounds since I’ve been back because she also makes these great lunches — she really spoils me, it’s nice.”
After living and working in the US for more than three decades, Vosloo, 61, is back in South Africa. It was his parents who introduced him to the performing arts. Born in Pretoria to thespians, he recalls stories of their theatre days touring the country. With two young children, the touring had to come to an end and the family settled down in Alberton where his father ran a drive-in theatre. This is where his love for movies started.
Just seven years old, Vosloo would ride his bike over the mounds of the drive-in, and at night sit alongside the family dog in their DKW station wagon watching the screenings. Later he starred in school plays. By the age of 15, he knew he wanted to be an actor. “I had a big fight with my mom when I was in standard 7. I said this is my last year of school, I can read and write now, I know what two plus two is — I’m done. I don’t want to do standard 8, 9 and 10 — screw that. I wanted to drop out and start working. I knew from an early age this is what I wanted to do,” says Vosloo.
But he went on to complete matric. At the time, a degree or diploma in drama was a prerequisite to audition for acting roles, so Vosloo did drama courses at Technikon Pretoria. That eight-month stint at the college meant he could audition for theatre roles, making a name for himself at the State Theatre in Pretoria. By the mid-1980s he had transitioned to film before relocating to the US in the early 1990s. In the US, Vosloo went back to theatre, where he starred in Born in the RSA at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre, followed by a production of Salomé in 1992 at New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre, where he shared the stage with Al Pacino.
He describes working with Pacino as a career highlight. His dressing room was opposite Pacino’s, so every night after the show, Vosloo got a glimpse of Hollywood stars such as Robert De Niro and Woody Allen, who’d visit his co-star. It wasn’t long before he would star in a blockbuster film alongside Hollywood heavyweights. Vosloo etched his name in cinematic memory through his captivating portrayals of villains.
One noteworthy instance is his role in the John Woo thriller, Hard Target (1993), where he shared the screen with Jean-Claude Van Damme. This was followed by his mesmerising embodiment of Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian high priest, in the 1999 film The Mummy (starring Brendan Fraser) and its 2001 sequel, The Mummy Returns. He continued his villainous streak as François Molay, the cunning henchman to the main antagonist, in the 2003 film Agent Cody Banks.
Everybody in Hollywood saw me ... as the bad guy. And it was great because I could use my accent. I didn’t have to do some k*k accent. I could just be a South African
“Everybody in Hollywood saw me in Hard Target and saw me as the bad guy. And it was great because I could use my accent. I didn’t have to do some k*k accent. I could just be a South African. The dye was cast,” he says.
Throughout the conversation, expletives flow from Vosloo’s lips as he uses his hands to talk. Yet his menacing on-screen characters are far removed from the man sipping tea in a garden. Despite spending decades in the US, he says he is still a “boereseun” and proves it by switching from English to Afrikaans.
His desire to work in his mother tongue is the reason he’s returned to South Africa, a seed first planted when he starred in the 2019 Showmax original Griekwastad. That film was followed by Netflix’s Ludik series and the film Silverton Siege in 2021. So when he got a call to star in Plan B, a new kykNET caper crime series inspired by characters from Deon Meyer’s novels and directed by Jozua Malherbe, Vosloo says it was an easy yes.
“Part of the reason when I came back four years ago was to do work in Afrikaans specifically. It was to do Griekwastad. That experience was the catalyst. I wanted to come back at least once a year for three or four months and work on South African-specific projects — whether it be in Afrikaans or English didn’t matter.”
We first met on the set of Plan B, a breathtaking vineyard in Stellenbosch. The series follows Ivan Malan, a military man, and his partner Paul Schmidt, played by Vosloo, as they execute a daring heist, stealing the €30m masterpiece, The Fire Maiden, from a notorious gangster.
Unlike the rest of the cast and crew who chatted to each other during lunch breaks, Vosloo kept to himself, which he explains is part of his acting method — he needs to immerse himself in the character he plays. “Other actors can make jokes and talk bullshit and when someone says action they can go right into it. I can’t. I have to focus and then be there for the five weeks.”
But being back in South Africa is about more than playing Afrikaans characters, it’s also part of Vosloo’s retirement plan. “I really do want to finish strong. I have this idea that I want to retire at 65. The reason for that is that even now, when I finish a job, I wonder what’s next. I wonder if I’ll ever work again. Will they hire me?” Vosloo confides.
With the Plan B filming completed and the series set to premiere on kykNET on March 26, Vosloo is already in talks for other roles. One of these is the reason he is sporting a silver moustache, growing his hair and watching what he eats to play a slender character, making him unrecognisable.
The actor says the downside of fame is missing out on life’s simple pleasures, such as people-watching. “I wish I was never recognised. Just because you can be a chameleon, you can go to a bar and hang out and see somebody weird and you can watch them. But if you’re famous, everybody’s watching you,” Vosloo says.
This means he chooses to enjoy his beers, brandy and Coke at home.
Vosloo says he’s not the person to call in an emergency when he’s on set. He believes his biggest asset as an actor is being a cheerleader for any project he works on, his greatest achievement. “I think my greatest strength is not necessarily as an actor, it’s when I come to work, I guarantee that I will inspire everyone to do their best work. If I get a call that the geyser broke at home, you’ll deal with it. I don’t give a f**k if the house burns down or if the baby is sick, niks. This work that we’re doing is the most important thing in the world. I bring that to set.”
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