We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Coco Blignaut. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Coco below.
Coco, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Hello CanvasRebel. Firstly, I love your name, as I am a rebellious sort myself 😉
As with so many starry-eyed actors and film creatives who flock to Los Angeles to follow the impossible dream, at a point in 2010, I was just done. Spent, trying to “break through”. I was about to follow my second choice. Be a teacher, which I have been all my life, and it supported my dream. But was it my dream? No. I would be quitting my dream. Luckily, I have a very insightful husband, who asked me a question which would change my life:
If you could play any character, who would it be?
This question broke me out of my slave-to-the-system auditioning mindset for one-liners and Tampax commercials.
You mean I was free to create my own character and film? WOW.
My mind soared with the possibilities of characters – angels, gods, saints … wait, saints?!
When I was little, I wanted to be a nun. My Baptist-going family was shocked. Where did THAT come from? I had never even seen a nun in my entire short life! At some point I went to my first Catholic Church with a friend, and as I walked through the church gardens to the front door, I smelled rosemary for the first time. The scent catapulted me back to a vision of a time when I was a nun in a church garden filled with rosemary. (Funnily enough, they say that rosemary is used to improve memory. Well, dang!)
Zoom forward to 2011 where my nun journey began as an actress, playing the legendary Saint Teresa of Ávila, renaissance-woman, wild and rebellious, a mystic and ecstatic.
For the past 13 years, I have gone through hell and then some more hell, with wispy visions of heaven. We did a play called God’s Gypsy about Teresa of ÁVILA in 2013, which had enormous difficulties. It was a nightmare completing the run. But complete it, we did. Then rewrite after rewrite of the play took us to very successful performances in Georgetown and Washington DC in 2014, to almost NO audience. The success lay in the beautiful play we had crafted, and the passionate performances. Grown men in the audience cried.
In 2015, we were advised to write a film about Saint Teresa, by the few who believed in us. We did not think we could do it, so we tried to find good screenwriters willing to do it for a penny. No luck there. So, we (my husband and I) jumped in and wrote it ourselves. What a learning curve. Suffice it to say, a play is not a screenplay … each is their own beast with which you wrestle for months on end.
At the end of 2019 we completed SAINT, which was so well received by big Hollywood directors/producers, that we were ready to make the film. Hallelujah!
And then of course, the pandemic broke out. The world was ending, but still we did not give up. We did a fund raiser in 2021, which raised enough money for me to keep producing for a few months. It has now been almost two years, and we are still pursuing the making of SAINT. (It turns out it is more than hard to break through when you are a nobody, even if you a have your own film). But Sylvester Stallone’s story has become our mantra … if he had to sell his dog because he was too poor to feed it, but still didn’t give up on Rocky, we will continue with SAINT. At least we can still feed our cat.
Currently, we have attached, the Emmy-award-winning violinist and composer – Lili Haydn – to compose for SAINT, and an Oscar shortlisted cinematographer, Thad Wadleigh, wants to film it. He has an amazing idea: let’s shoot SAINT in black and white on a sound stage, very theatrical, with minimal props and atmospheric lighting, like a Fellini film.
Estimate cost: $500 000.
With over 1.5 billion Catholics all over the world who revere Saint Teresa, and billions more who are soul-seekers, we believe SAINT has the potential to make a lot of money and touch a lot of hearts! (Our current inspiration is THE CHOSEN).
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
IMDB will tell you everything about my trajectory as a performing artist: 😉
I am Coco Blignaut: ACTRESS, PLAYWRIGHT, SCREENWRITER, CHILDREN’S BOOK WRITER AND DRUID.
Born and raised in South Africa, I studied Theater at The University of South Africa, and had my first break through in Cape Town as the lead in Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding, playing the Bride. I traveled all over the world as a backpacker, surviving on little money, but enriching my soul greatly. In Paris, I studied French and Theater at La Sorbonne. My best friend’s credit card paid for my studies. I owe her …!
I played Sandy in a French version of Grease at the legendary Le Trianon in Pigalle, Paris, and on London stages I played Nina in The Seagull, Salome in Oscar Wilde’s Salome, and I sang at the infamous jazz club, Hollywood Savoy in Paris. (I threw up almost every night before I went on stage. Working with French bands turned out to be really stressful. They don’t rehearse. You just go on).
My introduction to The Method was with Jack Waltzer in Paris. I studied with him for four years and had a breakthrough in the understanding of the craft of acting with integrity and depth. In Los Angeles, I studied for two years at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and played Agnes in Agnes of God, an experimental Nina in The Seagull being nailed to a cross, and Masha in Chekov’s The Three Sisters, at The Marilyn Monroe Theatre in West Hollywood.
Honing my craft at the legendary Actors Studio in West Hollywood, I tackled Abby in Eugene O’Neill’s – “Desire Under The Elms”, The Nun in “The Madman and the Nun”, and Helen in Athol Fugard’s “Hello and Goodbye”. Playing Maggie in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, I wore a catsuit and cracked a whip to tame a blindfolded Brick. On film, I have played a modern Mary Magdalene in downtown Los Angeles in a black and white film called “Iscariot”, a gypsy fortune teller in a silent film, “The Kid”, and Death coming to a young man on acid in Death Valley, in a film called “Starburst”.
Most of my roles have been leads and/or mythical, larger than life. And most of my life I have felt shy or embarrassed about that.
I adapted my play, God’s Gypsy, from a New York Times best-selling author, Barbara Mujica’s book, “Sister Teresa”, about the life of the great mystic, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and lectured on the play, as well as performed God’s Gypsy at Georgetown University and at The Gala Theatre in Washington DC, in 2016.
I have written three full length screenplays, of which my piéce d’oeuvre with co-author Edison Park, is SAINT, the story of Saint Teresa of Ávila. It is in development at our film company, Rosarium Films. Also in development at Rosarium Films – Boho Hobo, an unusual story of a homeless couple in New York; the real LADY M, the story of the historical Lady Macbeth; and The Book of Daniel, a screenplay about a homeless prophet, in Los Angeles, which bops and rocks to the soundtrack of 90s music.
I am also a published children’s author, with four books under my belt:
My Bantu Blankie (2009), Mademoiselle Puss in Provence (2016), Hansel and Gretel – a foodie tale (2020), and – Our Young Lady of Paris (2023).
My book website is: www.flowerchildbooks.world
Coco Blignaut is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio, New York & Los Angeles. She falls into the category of hard-working, self-possessed, but not self-indulgent actors at this iconic and legendary institute.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I believe that creatives create to allow their audience to dream. This is our job and mission. The tired nurse who comes home at night to eat her take-out and watch The Crown. The exhausted coach who comes home and flops on his couch to watch the art of a great football game. The abused child who reads the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, and learns about true love, changing her life forever. The tired metro-rider who hears the saxophone being played by a busker and it lifts his mood. EVERY HUMAN is constantly receiving the gift of the Dream from the creative. 
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Our minds have constant thoughts that are infected with the virus of negativity. These thoughts run on a loop and will constantly return to feed us our own sense of unworthiness and smallness in the world. That is why I believe that sitting in silence in nature – DAILY – can reset this constant dangerous loop. It creates a RESET of the negative thought-loop. And it connects the empty mind with the collective Magical Being (God/Spirit) that is alive and breathing around us all the time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rosariumfilms.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosariumfilms/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosariumfilms/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rosarium-films/
- Youtube: https://studio.youtube.com/video/ffoFMFjLutc/edit
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@saintthefilm
We are looking for producers/investors to help us raise the funds to make SAINT. Please connect at: coco@rosariumfilms.com
Image Credits
Silvia Spross @mattei2016