Bio
Mpho Malatsi is a South African actor best known for his starring role as Sgolwane, the loyal henchman of Duke (Carlo Radebe), on the e.tv soapie Backstage, from 2005-2009.
He also has a starring role as Jafta, a gangster who started out as a taxi businessman before becoming Neo's righthand man and later the tsotsi who does all of Daniel's dirty work, in the e.tv soapie Scandal!, joining the show in 2011.
Malatsi started acting at 15 doing community theatre in Alex. His mentor, the theatre impresario Bongani Linda, also directed him in his first big theatre production called Divine and Rule, about black-on-black violence in the township. It was written and directed by Bongani and toured the UK.
In the 2000s he decided to give TV a go. He did numerous commercials and became ambassadors of brands like DStv, Standard Bank, Vodacom and Debonairs. He then went on to land roles in big productions such as Yizo Yizo, Zero Tolerance, Backstage and more.
He's played various roles from a policeman to a teacher, but being a mobster is the one that stuck.
Mpho is also known for starring in a series of commercials for DStv as a character called Javas, whose supposedly endless wealth of knowledge is gleaned from the wide variety of programmes he watches.