“The season is going to blow your mind,” Connie Ferguson tells FORBES AFRICA a month before the release of the long-awaited Netflix South African drama series, Kings of Joburg.
“I think at the core, Kings of Joburg is about family,” adds the popular South African actor, filmmaker, producer and businesswoman, about the third season of the hit show in which she plays Veronica.
“It’s new antagonists, new battles, new storylines. It’s a very exciting season.”
Created by Shona Ferguson, Ferguson’s late husband, the franchise gained popularity in 2020 and was the number one most-watched show on Netflix in South Africa for over three weeks.
In the last couple of years, there has been a big push towards more African content on global platforms like Netflix.
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The creative industries contribute significantly to the South African economy, accounting for 2.97% of the nation’s total economic output in 2020, according to South African Cultural Observatory. Ferguson says that it is important that if you want the stories to be authentically told, they need to be told directly by Africans.
“Because the world thinks they know us and they really don’t. We can’t be entertaining, for example, American stories and telling American stories, when we should be focusing on telling our stories, because that’s who we are. We want the world to also get to authentically know us and who we are. We are exporting ourselves to the world.”
Known to the entertainment world for her role as Karabo Moroka in the South African soap opera Generations which she began playing in 1993, Ferguson says she has always been passionate about ensuring that there are young people in creative spaces able to navigate it well.
“I believe in succession,” Ferguson adds. “Because people die with their talent, people die with their ideas, and they haven’t imparted anything to anyone. So you want to make sure, at least I want to make sure, that when I go, there’s someone left behind who will say, ‘I learned this from Aus Connie, or got this opportunity [because of her]’. For me, that’s like a form of succession. You’re leaving a legacy behind, and you are empowering the next generation of our filmmakers.”
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