The nationwide Isidingo Talent Search has one more pitstop left: Johannesburg on Thursday and Friday 18 and 19 January at Atlas Studios in Milpark, and I spoke to Isidingo creator and Isidingo Talent Search judge Gray Hofmeyr.
I asked him how the process of finding the new ex-football star character for Isidingo is going so far, why they decided to do the Isidingo Talent Search and whether the number of people who showed up so far has surprised him.
Click on READ MORE below to hear what Gray Hofmeyr has to say!
How has the process been so far for you with the national Isidingo Talent Search auditions?
Well, look, Bloemfontein was very interesting. We had a very good turn-out there and we got a couple of nice people out of there. Port Elizabeth was not – we did not have that many. Durban - there were a lot of people, but not a lot of potential finalists. And here in Cape Town we'll see. What has happened is that we've gotten a lot of people who can't speak an African language. I would have assumed that we would get some nice potentials from here because there is a huge modelling community. Not that they can necessarily act. So we've seen some quite good looking-boys coming through, but they can't necessarily do the gig. We'll see how many people we get in Johannesburg. We've set aside two days there.
What surprised me is just the level of reaction of people out there – normal people – who are interested and wanted to audition for a role on Isidingo – after I started writing about the Isidingo Talent Search. Are you surprised by the level of interest and the amount of people?
We had no idea how many people we would get? We end up auditioning round about a hundred per city. We don't actually have the time to do more. We can do about 20 in an hour, so it's about 5 hours a day and a 100 people. If we start going over a 100 then we start to weed them out before we even get to a place – anybody who doesn't look ''right'', who are too old, too young, and they can't speak a black language – unless they look amazing. We kick them out.
Why did you guys decide to go this route and do a public nationwide audition?
Well the character's been written. It's an opportunity to find new talent.
The Isidingo Talent Search is still happening in Johannesburg on Thursday and Friday 18 and 19 February 2010 from 08:00 at Atlas Studios in Milpark, Johannesburg.
