fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Bonisile John Kani (born 30 August 1943) is a South African actor, author, director and playwright. He is known for portraying T'Chaka in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Black Panther (2018), Rafiki in the 2019 remake of The Lion King and Colonel Ulenga in the Netflix film Murder Mystery (2019).

John Kani
Kani in 2007
Born	Bonisile John Kani (1943-08-30) 30 August 1943 (age 79) New Brighton, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Occupation	Actor director playwright
Years active	1965–present
Children	Atandwa Kani
Honours	Order of Ikhamanga in Silver[1]

Early and personal life

Kani was born on 30 August 1943 in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth In the Eastern Cape province.[1] In 1975, after appearing in Athol Fugard's anti-apartheid play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, which he also co-wrote, in the United States, Kani returned to South Africa. There, he received a phone call saying that his father wanted to see him. On his way there, he was surrounded by police who beat him and left him for dead. His left eye was lost as a result of the incident and he now wears a prosthesis Which is technically a glass eye.[2]

His son Atandwa is also an actor, who made his debut on U.S. television on the CW series Life Is Wild, and played a younger version of Kani's character T'Chaka in Black Panther.[3]

Career

Kani joined The Serpent Players (a group of actors whose first performance was in the former snake pit of the zoo, hence the name) in Port Elizabeth in 1965 and helped to create many plays that went unpublished but were performed to a resounding reception.^{[citation needed]}

These were followed by the more famous Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island, co-written with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, in the early 1970s. Kani also received an Olivier Award nomination for his role in My Children! My Africa![4]

Kani's work has been widely performed around the world, including New York, where he and Winston Ntshona won a Tony Award in 1975 for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (which ran for 159 performances) and The Island.'[5] These two plays were presented in repertory at the Edison Theatre for a total of 52 performances.^{[citation needed]}

In 1987 Kani played Othello in a performance of William Shakespeare's play of the same name in South Africa, which was still under apartheid. "At least I'll be able to kiss Desdemona without leaving a smudge," he said then.[6]

Nothing but the Truth (2002) was his debut as sole playwright and was first performed in the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. This play takes place in post-apartheid South Africa and does not concern the conflicts between whites and blacks, but the rift between blacks who stayed in South Africa to fight apartheid, and those who left only to return when the hated regime folded. It won the 2003 Fleur du Cap Awards for the best actor and best new South African play.[7] In the same year, he was also awarded a special Obie Award for his extraordinary contribution to theatre in the United States.[8]

Kani is executive trustee of the John Kani Theatre Foundation, founder and director of the John Kani Theatre Laboratory and chairman of the National Arts Council of SA.[9] He starred as T'Chaka in the Marvel Studios blockbusters Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Black Panther (2018). The fact that Kani was a Xhosa native speaker led Chadwick Boseman, who played his onscreen son T'Challa, to make that Wakanda's language, and to learn whole scenes in Xhosa, although he had never studied the language before.

In 2019, Kani appeared in the Netflix film Murder Mystery where he played Colonel Ulenga. He then voiced Rafiki in The Lion King (the live action remake of the Disney animated film).[10]

Kani's play, Kunene and the King, a co-production for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Fugard Theatre, played in the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2019 before transferring back to Cape Town. He starred alongside fellow South African Antony Sher.[11]

Other recognition and awards

On 20 February 2010, Kani received a SAFTA Life Time award.[12] He has also received the Avanti Hall of Fame Award from the South African film, television, and advertising industries, an M-Net Plum award and a Clio award in New York. Other awards include the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation Award for the year 2000 and the Olive Schreiner Prize for 2005. He was voted 51st in the Top 100 Great South Africans in 2004.[13]

In 2006, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cape Town.[14] Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University appointed him an honorary Doctor of Philosophy in 2013.[15]

In 2016 Kani received the national honour of the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver, for his "Excellent contributions to theatre and, through this, the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa".[1]

The main theatre of the Market Theatre complex in Newtown, Johannesburg, has been renamed The John Kani Theatre in his honour.[16]

In 2020 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Witwatersrand[17] Recently, in 2021, John Kani has been conferred the Da Vinci Laureate by The Da Vinci Institute.

Plays

• Sizwe Banzi is Dead (1972) (co-authored with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona)
• The Island (1973) (co-authored with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona)
• Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (co-authored with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona)
• My Children My Africa! (actor)
• Nothing But the Truth (2002) (sole playwright)
• The Tempest (2008) (actor in the role of Caliban, at the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town; Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; and tour of Richmond, Leeds, Bath, Nottingham, Sheffield)
• Missing (2014) (actor and sole playwright)
• Kunene and the King (2019) (actor and playwright)

Film and television

Television roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	BBC2 Playhouse	Styles / Buntu	Episode: "Sizwe Bansi Is Dead"
	2nd House		Episode: "Athol Fugard"
1978	Play for Today	George O'Brien	Episode: "Victims of Apartheid"
1985	Master Harold...and the Boys	Willie	TV Movie
1986	Miss Julie	John	TV Movie
1989	Othello	Othello	TV Movie
1997	Kap der Rache	Inspektor Khumalo	German TV Movie
2006	Hillside	Dr. Vincent Maloka	1 episode
2008	The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency	Daddy Bapetsi	Episode: "Pilot"
	Silent Witness	Dr. Phiri	2 episode
2012	iNkaba	Mkhuseli Mthetho	1 episode
2015	Wallander	Max Khulu	Episode: "The White Lioness"
2021	What If...?	T'Chaka (voice)	2 episodes

Film roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1978	The Wild Geese	Sgt. Jesse Link
1980	Marigolds in August	Melton
1981	Killing Heat	Moses
1987	Saturday Night at the Palace	September
	An African Dream	Khatana
1989	Options	Jonas Mabote
	A Dry White Season	Julius
	The Native Who Caused All the Trouble	Tselilo Mseme
1992	Sarafina!	School Principal
1995	Soweto Green: This Is a 'Tree' Story	Dr. Curtis Tshabalala
1996	The Ghost and the Darkness	Samuel
1997	Kini and Adams	Ben
1998	The Tichborne Claimant	Bogle
2001	Final Solution	Rev. Peter Lekota
2007	The Bird Can’t Fly	Stone
2008	Nothing but the Truth	Sipho	Also director and writer
2009	Endgame	Oliver Tambo
2010	White Lion	Old Gisani
2011	Coriolanus	General Cominius
	Janapriyan		Indian Movie
	How to Steal 2 Million	Julius Twala Snr.	South African Movie
2012	Jail Caesar	Marius
2016	The Suit	Mr. Maphikela	Short film
	Captain America: Civil War	T'Chaka
2018	Black Panther	T'Chaka
2019	Murder Mystery	Colonel Ulenga
	The Lion King	Rafiki (voice)
2021	Seal Team	Brick (voice)
2024	Mufasa: The Lion King	Rafiki (voice)	Post-production
TBA	Murder Mystery 2	Colonel Ulenga	Post-production[18]

Drama

• Nothing But the Truth (2002)

References

External links

• John Kani at IMDb
• Bonisile John Kani

На других языках

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[de] John Kani

Bonisile John Kani (* 30. August 1943[1] in New Brighton, Südafrika) ist ein südafrikanischer Schauspieler, Theaterregisseur und Dramatiker.

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- [en] John Kani

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