Uzalo star Dawn Thandeka King starts the New Year behind bars on a new Mzansi Magic prison drama Lockdown.
She stars as Ma Z, an inmate at a high security women's prison who yearns for her freedom so she can take care of her daughter on the outside.
As you can see from the pic, you
don't want get on her wrong side. She's established herself as a leader in the prison and she cunningly manipulates the inmates and wardens to achieve her goals.
Her stint in Lockdown doesn't mean that Dawn has left Uzalo for the show. She filmed the series in a break between filming Seasons 2 and 3 of Uzalo and right now she's back on set with Uzalo filming Season 3 for next year.
Dawn injected serious girl power into Uzalo this year so she's an ideal casting for Ma Z.
Of course not everyone in Lockdown wants her to be in charge. She has a ruthless arch rival - a boxing champ who goes by the name of Tyson. She's played by Lorcia Cooper who flexes her dancer biceps to throw a mean punch.
Here's a close-up on her and the other lead characters:
Tyson
Played by Lorcia Cooper
A tough-as-nails prison boxing champ who literally fights her demons with her fists. Temperamental, intimidating and confrontational, Tyson wants to rule the prison’s other inmates with an iron fist and has her sights set on dismantling any kind of hold that Ma Z has. Complete control is her ultimate prize.
Monde
Played by Zola Nombona
A talented and beautiful young woman who left the cocoon of her small town life to pursue fame and fortune in the dazzling lights of Egoliwood. Instead, what she got was infamy, thanks to her wily money-hungry boyfriend/producer Zakes (Luxolo Ndabeni), who introduced her to a notorious lifestyle that landed her in jail.
Beauty
Played by Slindile Nodangala
The prison’s Governor, the head whose “tough but fair mama” façade hides a manipulative and shrewd businesswoman. She wants her prison to run smoothly and "her girls” to give her the barest of problems. Beauty doesn't want her reign to be tainted because her underhanded and blatantly corrupt practices might be revealed.
Njabulo
Played by Mthunzi Ntoyi
A prison warden who happens to be Beauty's son. An academic underachiever who desperately wants to prove his worth to his mother by finally obtaining a civil engineering degree and freeing himself from her prison - in every sense of the word.
Sharon
Played by Lindiwe Ndlovu
Beauty’s right hand who secretly wants to occupy the Governor’s seat herself. She believes she can do a much better job than Beauty, but her real motivation - like some of the women she guards - is ultimate power. This is a woman who will do anything to ascend the throne, believing it will fill the void she has lived with all her life.
Slenda
Played by Nomsa Buthelezi
Ma Z’s lieutenant. Her gullibility and loyalty to her gang leader usually sees her being the one to execute Ma Z’s bidding. The fact that she is mentally unstable and talks to her dead baby means she should be in a psychiatric ward, which works beautifully to Ma Z's advantage.
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The series is produced by Black Brain (
City Ses'la, Abo Mzala, Ses'top La) and it premieres on Monday, 9 January 2017 at 20h00.