Vatiswa Ndara Shares Childhood Acting Roots in New Memoir About SA Entertainment
- Vatiswa Ndara promoted her new book, Unfiltered Memoirs, sharing a revealing excerpt about her early life
- The actress recalled her very first acting experience at a primary school in Birmingham, England, as a young child
- Ndara also opened up about how her iconic nickname Vati came about during her school days in the UK
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Vatiswa Ndara is pulling back the curtain on her life in the South African entertainment industry, and she's starting from the very beginning. The award-winning actress is promoting her new memoir, Unfiltered Memoirs, which she describes as her "unglamorous odyssey" through showbiz, and the pages she has shared so far paint a vivid picture of a little girl who was destined for the spotlight.
Vatiswa Ndara's first steps on stage
Long before she became one of Mzansi's most respected actresses, Ndara was a young girl in Birmingham, England, singing in churches with her family. She shared on X, under her handle @theVati_Can, that word had spread about the Ndara family's performances, turning their Sunday appearances into what she playfully called a "family von Trapp" singing career. Those early moments in front of a congregation planted the first seeds of her love for performance.
Her first proper acting experience came at St Mary's Primary School in Selly Oak, Birmingham, where she attended with her brother Sipho. She admits it is a memory that still makes her cringe, joking that it makes her want to "crawl under the nearest rock." She had just arrived from a predominantly Xhosa-speaking community in South Africa and suddenly found herself surrounded by English speakers with unfamiliar accents, with no time to pick up even a few basic phrases.
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Despite the language barrier, young Vatiswa quickly found common ground with two classmates, Michelle Young and Lucy Smith. During a break, a playful game of catch turned into an impromptu performance when she dramatically hid the ball behind her back. The three girls were off and running from that point on.
How "Vati" got her name
It was also during those school days in Birmingham that the nickname Vati was born. After the catch incident, Lucy and Michelle spoke to their class teacher, Miss Johnson, and called her over using the shortened name. She noted:
"Vatiswa was too difficult to pronounce."
And Vati simply stuck. The nickname did not stop there. A classmate named Cheryl discovered that her other name was Viola, which somehow evolved into Vovo, a nickname the whole class adopted. Ndara admitted she still cannot work out the connection between Viola and Vovo.
Over the years, the names kept multiplying. The Vatican, La Vats, Vats, Mavati, the Vats, Mavats, Vava, Mavava, Svinqi and Vai are all names she has collected along the way. Unfiltered Memoirs is available on Takealot and Amazon.
Vatiswa reflected on 7 years after speaking up
Veteran actress Vatiswa Ndara marked the 7th anniversary of her 2019 open letter that exposed alleged exploitation in SA's film and TV industry.
Ndara linked the anniversary to her memoir Unfiltered, which details her experiences of blacklisting and unfair labour practices.
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Source: Briefly News
