We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sihle Vilakazi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sihle , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

The day I realized I wanted to take the artistic and creative path professionally was when I was at the age of four, and I was performing as a little dog at the school play, to my remembrance. My mom definitely told me that I was the only child that did not cry for their parents on stage. And my mom believed that I was a natural performer since then and then forward to four years later when I was eight years old, we were asked what we wanted to become when we grow up, and I said I wanted to become a doctor like my mom. And I remember I went to my mom and told her that at school they asked what we wanted to become and I told her that I wanted to become a doctor like her and she said and I quote “ why don’t you become an actress” and I remember ever since then my whole career choice shifted because I never thought that I would receive support from my mom or I didn’t even realize that she was genuinely going to support this talent that I had, and ever since then I I ended up taking the artistic path professionally.

Sihle , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

And my mission as an actress, dancer, unit, production manager, producer, and model is to always bring the vision to life. As an actress, I bring the vision to life through research through performing and being the the role that I was assigned to, and bring it to life in the way that the director and the writer does, and also add a little bit of myself to it, and make character feel more 3-D and plausible. In dancing, it’s more about performing and expressing the vision and telling a story through my body, and making the audience understand with no words, being said, through unit production, managing or producing, I hire crew that I believe will bring your vision to best because of either they’re cinematography technique, problem-solving, skills and logistic abilities, and I always try to prevent a myriad factor of mistakes or problems that could occur in the future, and most importantly, making sure that the crew and the cast are happy and comfortable because shooting a film with good energy onset is very important and it also keeps the vision going and it also keeps the film set motivated and happy and that’s what I really enjoy about producing and you to production managing. And as a model, I will try to bring the vision to life by executing, the goal of how you want the picture or the vision to be captured from the lens. I was able to get my foot into the industry was by networking I believe networking is very important in the entertainment industry, because if it wasn’t for networking, it wouldn’t have been able to stick my foot in the door quicker than going by the book, and when I mean by the book, specifically getting a degree and being able to pursue your craft after your degree. The entertainment industry is unpredictable and so I always encourage upcoming artists and creatives to always with not just local people in their own country but to also network with people outside their country because you never know who you might meet and who would get you your next gig or your next film or your next big break and just by networking, I was genuinely able to get my name out there. And with networking, it has landed me to work for major film studios in America for example FOX Studios, BET, I’ve also danced for Coachella recently for the artist named Uncle Waffles, I was also able to work with one of the top photographers in South Africa named Alain Kasse. And I had my first producing debut on a SAG series, title “And There Were Roommates” written by Angie Munyange and Hilary Ijeh which will be a pitch to the film studios in the United States. And I was also able to work on a Loeries Silver award winning film, named Sebari Milach. And to tie this all together with all these amazing accolades it was all because of being kind to people, and always being there to help each other because in the entertainment industry is a teamwork industry, you cannot do it alone, and by helping the community and helping others in where the potential will shine, has led me to these wonderful opportunities.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I would not say pivot persay, I would call it, the sight-unseen-foreseen career, The day I realized I had to pivot my career path was when I produced the film as a production coordinator for the film Sebari Milach, initially, my initial profession was acting, and I just wanted to be an actress only until I realized when I produced this film and was able to problem, solve the situation’s that were happening in that film, and now, for it to be an award winning film. And after that, I was able to produce eight films in two months and I have loved producing ever since.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Sihle_Vilakazii
• Linkedin: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=0CDUQw7AJahcKEwjI0Z-Z9vn8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fsihle-vilakazi-a56230144&psig=AOvVaw0YuqvQmWKwPBtsyHEMFN8X&ust=1675533329458802