Sophie Lichaba on using her past pain to fuel her new TV role

As Mzansi Magic Drama Lockdown enters its fifth season and kicks off a new relationship with streaming platform Showmax, the cast and crew can only celebrate a feat reserved for very few South African dramas.

The show began in 2017 at the height of the success of American prison drama Orange is the New Black and Lockdown, inevitably, could not escape comparisons to the show.

Nearly three years down the line and they’ve all but shaken off any and all ideas about the shows having any kind of similarities and have gone on to become the most awarded drama at last year’s SAFTAs.

Black Brain Productions – the geniuses behind the show – along with Showmax recently hosted a media screening where they also honoured the production’s longest working on-screen talent by presenting them with gold plaques.

Black Brain also welcomed a new cast member in the form of Sophie Lichaba (formerly Ndaba) who, until this point, had been on a lengthy hiatus from acting.

As the show expands from its primary location at Thabazimbi Correctional Facility to Kgotsong Asylum we are introduced to the facility’s head nurse, Palesa, in the first episode.

While Palesa bears Lichaba’s sweet voice, the scarred woman seems anything but sweet.

As the second episode progresses, we get a better idea of her place in the bigger picture and it is then that the viewer simultaneously begins feeling sorry for her while developing a growing curiosity about her story.

Speaking to The Citizen, Lichaba maintains that her character loves with all her heart and gives with all her soul and believes that fans will be able to glean that from her first full scene.

Originally born Sophie Mphasane in Soweto in 1972, Lichaba is a South African actress best known for her role as Queen Moroka on the SABC1 soapie Generations.

Although her stint on Generations was her most notable role, she actually got her start in a show called ‘Class of ’92’. She later went on to star in shows such as Thlaranthlophe, Yizo Yizo 1, Egoli, Soul City, City Ses’la and High Rollers.

In 1998 she married fellow actor Themba Ndaba and the pair later split in 2007. She later had a brief and highly publicised relationship with a bishop named Keith Harrington between 2011–2013 and their union ended with them taking out protection orders against each other.

During that time, Sophie revealed a diabetes diagnosis and shared the beginnings of her health journey on SABC 3’s former lifestyle show Top Billing.

Sophie, who had previously been known for sporting a fuller figure, also took the opportunity to explain that her new lifestyle would possibly result in a dramatic weight loss.

Sadly, when she debuted her new, slimmer figure months later, she fell victim to vicious rumours, cyberbullying and numerous death hoaxes – the effects of which she has been very vocal about.

When asked if her break from acting helped allow her to go the kind of place that would allow her, as an actress, to bring a character such as Palesa to life, Sophie added that it was her hiatus and the aforementioned trials she had faced that helped her step into this role.

“I think taking a break was amazing. Drawing from experience of the things that pain me as a person and as a woman came to mind,” said Sophie.

“You obviously see broken women every day, you become a broken woman yourself from past experiences and you draw from that and that’s what kind of guided me to say ‘this is who she really is’,” she added.

Sophie is of the belief that a lot of women will see themselves in her new character but believes there are lessons to be learned from this.

“Even though she can be a bit much and you will get that as the episodes go, the bottom line is that she loves so genuinely and so innocently because she doesn’t know that most of the people she deals with don’t take her as she takes them. I think a lot of women go through that today. They forget to love themselves and that’s how they get stuck in somebody else’s world and forget about their own.”

As much as this fact is unique to Sophie’s new character, it also applies to many of the characters the show has introduced its audiences to.

Having the support of such a close-knit cast and crew is what many of the show’s on-screen talent have expressed being grateful for due to the dark places they have to go in the roles they play.

Lockdown’s lead actress, Dawn Thandeka King owes the cast’s closeness to humility and positive energy.

“Everyone there is energy-orientated and just spiritual and we recognise when we just need to take a break and just gather ourselves and be okay or support a cast member, perhaps the episode or the scene they were shooting was hectic,” said King.

“If you take a step back and look at the cast of Lockdown, you will see that each one of those cast members is powerful in their own right. They’re powerful enough to be all diva-ish in all kinds of ways but none of them are like that.”

King recalls how nervous she felt when she first started the show after having seen the names of the other talents on the call sheet. But with time, she grew to understand that her fellow cast members were of the same mindset when they began.

“We respect the space and we respect each other and that’s all I can owe everything to. From season one, we’ve evolved. We’ve become sisters. We’ve shared journeys together. We’ve grown in our own personal capacities and in our careers and none of it is fake.”

King’s sentiments were echoed by one of the show’s creators and lead directors Mandla Ngcongwane (popularly known as Mandla N).

“It’s just genuine truth,” begins Ngcongwane, before adding: “It’s not really a job, this is passion. When we do get the characters out, we both just celebrate, you know and we know that we work hard. It’s not about running lines, it’s about getting the moment, making people laugh, making people cry, taking them through a journey and for us, that’s what’s important.

“When you are constantly laughing and celebrating with people, you become close, you become family.”

The first three episodes of Season 5 of Lockdown are now streaming only on Showmax and two more episodes will go live every Thursday.

Notorious for its cliffhangers, plot twists and emotional rollercoasters, Lockdown takes viewers into the cells and offices of Thabazimbi Women’s Correctional Facility, where survival is the order of the day.

As Season 5 picks up, Masebata’s cult is no longer in power. Arch-rivals Mazet (Dawn Thandeka King) and Tyson (Lorcia Cooper) are running the prison yard together, for now.

Governor Deborah Banda (Pamela Nomvete) is under pressure from the department of correctional services after one death too many at the prison. And Monde (Zola Nombona) is trying to make things right with Vicky (Lauren Jenae). Multi-award winners Linda Sebezo, Nomsa Buthelezi, Patricia Boyer and Sophie Ndaba co-star.

Watch the trailer below:

Or for a full taste of what to expect, watch the full first episode of season 5 for free on YouTube

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