Top 45 John Kani Quotes

You can give me any of Shakespeare‘s plays and I’ll tell you a parallel African folktale.

In 1973, ‘Sizwe Banzi is Dead‘ and ‘The Island,’ which I co-wrote with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, transferred from The Royal Court Theatre to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.

The only reference in my life is my life, and it’s my life experience. It’s my environment. It’s my community. I’ve not made that for books.

Working with my friend Sir Antony Sher is truly one of the highlights of my career as an artist.

When I’m abroad it’s almost like I’m in a transit lounge. I’m only comfortable when I know the date of departure.

And I’m part of the generation of South Africans who feel we’re lucky to be alive.

We haven‘t got those dreams: ‘I wish to become doctor or a lawyer.’ Black people in South Africa have been barred in doing anything that would articulate their cause.

I write about the human condition, as a South African. I sometimes see South Africa with the spectacles of the past and there will then be a political content in my writing.

That’s the beauty of art: art is universal.

In the global push to stop gender-based violence, men in the entertainment industry need to join forces with women to end violence by men against women and children.

I understood the whole purpose of Truth and Reconciliation, and I supported it 100 per cent, but I couldn’t deal with it myself.

Whenever I play Shakespeare, I keep thinking, ‘how did this Englishman know so much about me?’

I’d read Shakespeare in school, translated into isiXhosa, and loved the stories, but I hadn’t realised before I started reading the English text how powerful the language was – the great surging speeches Othello has.

Any older actor knows the last great mountain to climb is to play King Lear and now, if I ever play Lear, I will have done the pre-preparation because I had to go into the play and read it over and over again.

‘Captain Marvel,’ whereby the steel trap is challenged, where the hero is a heroine, where the most powerful person who has the welfare of the future of the human race is a woman. What else can it be? Because that was the role of my mother when I was a kid.

I believe strongly that the word ‘protest‘ is no excuse for bad work. The artist must create.

Someone once asked me what I missed most. I said, ‘My youth.’ I’ve never been a boy who could run around, go crazy, do this, try that. There wasn’t time for that.

Inkaba’ is about a feud between two South African families. They have been fighting for years, from one generation to the next. It’s like those typical feuds you have in rural KwaZulu-Natal where, after a while, you do not even know why you are fighting.

I have been on the Urban Brew board for many years and assisted with the artistic evaluation of the various shows that were pitched to the production company.

Over the years, many young actors have approached me: Vusi Kunene, Sello Maake ka Ncube, and Seputla Sebogodi. They all said, ‘Hey Bra John, let’s do ‘The Island and we want you to direct.’ But somehow, my heart was not in it or I was busy with something else, so I’d say, ‘ja, ja, we’ll do it.’

This is the problem I have: I write a play and I give it to a director and they say, ‘I’ll do it one condition: if you play the role.’

All over the world, there is someone sitting in a cell because he or she is not allowed freedom of expression.

You can’t always play the hero. You have to play the villain.

In Australia, I almost became a counsellor. At the end of each performance there would be a queue of sobbing people backstage. They all wanted to explain why they left South Africa.

I come from a long line of storytellers.

I’m Dad at home, not John Kani.

You found during apartheid a strange occurrence from the white folks themselves. There were those who did make a choice to speak out and stand and be counted in the army of human beings who believed in justice. And then there are those who left.

It dawned on me that theatre is a powerful weapon for change.

I want my work to contribute toward creating a better society, toward bringing people together. That is always the first consideration, not the money.

I remember the words of my grandmother who died at 102. I remember my great mother, Grand Brika, who died at the age of 106. They talked to us all the time. And my grandmother even lied to me. She said there was royalty. She said that my great-great-great grandfather was the king of the outer Thembu.

I had to look at white people as fellow South Africans and fellow partners in building a new South Africa.

Seventy is beautiful for me. I am truly, at last, an elder.

I couldn’t really say that a repressive society would result in creative art. But somehow it does help, it is an ingredient, it acts as a Catalyst to a man who is committed.

I still remember the moment when my teacher, Mr. Budaza, walked into class and said, ‘Today we are going to study ‘Julius Caesar,’ one of Shakespeare’s most important plays.’

Our job as artists, we believe, is not to make changes in society. We don’t have the ability to do that. We reflect life. We are the mirror of the society to look into. Our job is to raise questions, but we have no answers.

I did ‘Sizwe Bansi is Dead’ for 34 years.

I used to wonder, when my grandmother would tell me what the wolf said to the jackal, how these animals can talk. And, she would say, ‘in my stories, animals talk. Shut up and listen.’

I am a citizen of the world, or no world at all!

When I first encountered Shakespeare as a boy, I read every word this man has written. To me, he is like an African storyteller.

Every time there is a movie that tells a South African story, it is done by someone who must be taught the right way of pronouncing ‘Sawubona.’ Enough is enough.

In any character you are given to play, be it evil/good/whatever character, you begin with self. You examine yourself and ruthlessly see similarities between you and the devil, or between you and the dictator, or between you and the kind man.

I have never been attracted to television work. Even to appear in series and soapies. I have always appeared in theatre and major movies, writing plays and other things.

My grandfather told me our history through his stories about all the great Zulu battles.

My stories are about humanity, about the challenges of surviving and the constant fight against ignorance, inhumanity and complacency.

‘Sizwe’ is the beginning of protest theatre; ‘Nothing But The Truth’ is post-apartheid South Africa.