We've asked
Montana actress
Chantal Stanfield to write a special guest column for us about her experiences on the show. Chantal plays rich-witch Dalene Phillips, who uses her cash to promote her dubious, often sex-andalous agendas. Here's Part 4 of her column: The Wicked Witch of Montana ...
I’d like to take a moment for the quietly implosive nature of the dinner party at Victor and Nolitha’s house… Thank you. You’ll see what I mean. Don’t expect huge fireworks, rather under-the-surface simmerings and subtle insinuations. Here’s why…
Just to be clear about the various storylines that have the possibility to collide at said dinner party.
Victor, without consulting Nolitha, has invited Dalene and Winston - Dalene, who already has heavy issues with Nolitha, and Winston who seems to have suspicions about Dalene’s ‘business activities’. Nolitha also has a card - she saw Dalene and Richard having intimate moments at the salon.
Victor and Nolitha’s relationship has become highly strained, adding to the guilt she already feels regarding her former love and ex-prisoner, Lwazi.
Victor has also invited Lwazi who will be bringing Rochelle along - Nolitha has already shown vague jealousy seeing Lwazi with Rochelle at the KCC. So we’ll have six characters around one table with enough secrets, intrigue and heat to set the candles alight!
What I really hope viewers will appreciate, and specifically those who read this column, is that it took all day to shoot the dinner party scenes. All day! It comes down to the logistics of shooting on location with one camera.
Each of the six characters, as per normal, needed various close-ups, medium-shots and wide shots; eating food requires careful attention to the continuity of shots i.e. if your fork had food on it, the food needs to be there again on the repeat shot; every character’s hair and make-up had to be checked prior to any shot.
Add to that missing a line or a cue or even forgetting one’s line - once again, all day!
And just try to get six lively, bubbly actors to keep quiet in between shots. Our poor crew! There was a rowdy moment when we got a stern talking to from our director, Thabang.
It’s very important to keep it together in between shots because that’s when the crew would be changing tape, adjusting the camera, touching up make-up, filling glasses or dishes for the sake of continuity - if there’s too much noise, people naturally get agitated. Our crew was really phenomenal and we all had a lekker vibe on set.
• Look out for the absolutely divine Malva Pudding that Dalene brings along to the party. I LOVE Malva Pudding, it is my absolute favourite dessert. Forget tiramisu or crème brulee. So I was very happy when I saw it in the script.
There’s a scene in the episode when there’s just one piece of the pudding left so Dalene breaks it in half and feeds Victor and Winston who were play-fighting over it. Cute, right? For me, yes. For the actors Charles and Az, not so much!
Having a piece of Malva Pudding, no matter how delicious, every 15 minutes or so for the sake of continuity and change in shot sizes can surely make one loath the lovely pud! I have a favourite photo of Charles (Victor) in between shots looking forlorn and full with a half-empty baking tray of it in front of him. Poor guy, he had to eat the most!
• The wine is actually apple juice - I do love some good wine but can you imagine how much crazier we would’ve been?! That’s one of those set secrets - the red wine is red grape juice, the white wine is apple juice and anything else is either a mixture of the two or weak/ strong tea.
From now on, I’ll also talk a little (note: a little, not a Gossip Girl) about some of my co-stars in a few of the columns.
I’ll start this week with June Van Merch who plays Dalene’s mom, Maud Jordaan.
I might have said so before but I knew quite a number of the actors on set already. Aunty June, as we call her, is truly a delightful lady and one of our country’s best comedic actors.
She certainly has dramatic chops but making people laugh is the hardest thing to do on Earth – and she nails it every time! I’ve always looked up to her, she’s so good and I was just a little apprehensive about meeting a star of her calibre in case of ego. But I really had nothing to worry about.
June is quite down-to-earth. She even agreed to take some time out and gave me some much needed help and advice with the Afrikaans in the script when I couldn’t get it. She’s so funny that as soon as a scene with her ended we’d all let out our laughter.
It was even harder to keep a straight face sometimes when the camera was on me – Aunty Maud’s lines are that crazy and June’s delivery aces it. Don’t even try to compete! Useless fact: if you look really closely, you’ll see that both June and I have the same ‘Greek profile’ as we called it – our noses are actually similar!
Well, do enjoy the dinner party, my possums. I know I did. I can’t wait to see how it turns out…