Ways of ‘The Wild’

Josette Eales talks spray tan, sunscreen and her idol Philip Seymour Hoffman

Self confessed “Durban theatre girl” Josette Eales might have  felt a bit  like a fish out of water when she moved up to Joburg, but landing a lead role in the M-Net series The Wild and being cast in the new Leon Schuster movie that is set to be released in June next year brings her that much closer to realising her dreams of Hollywood.


Soon after returning from a training session at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK, Eales was cast in the pilot shooting of The Wild. The pilot got the go-ahead and as of next month, Eales will appear on South African television screens as Sara van Reenen, daughter of Karel van Reenen (played by Ian Roberts) and member  of one of three families who are tied together by  a stretch of land and a five-star game lodge.


Sara is a sun loving landscaper, which is pretty much the complete opposite of the pale Eales who lathers herself in sunscreen and avoids the sun at all costs, but layers and layers of spray tan every morning before the shooting begins is good training for the “chameleoning” that Eales believes all good actors should be adept at.

“I want to be that actress where people say ‘gosh, she’s amazing, what’s her name again?’” Eales explains. “I want to be the actor that is so changeable and versatile that they can chameleon into different roles and almost not be recognisable. I think that those are the actors that are the most interesting to watch. Take Philip Seymour Hoffman, for example. For years nobody knew his name, we all only learnt his name after he won an Oscar. But he’s incredible, and those are the kind of actors that inspire me.”


Even though the transition from the stage to the screen has been a “scary” and rather steep learning curve, Eales knows what she wants and is prepared to go the extra mile to get there. When she  lived in New York, she fought to get into a highly sought after class with  Philip Seymour Hoffman’s method acting coach. Now, adjusting to the fast pace with which her Schuster and The Wild shoots have been advancing is just one more step in the direction of Tinseltown.


Whether she’s playing Sara van Reenen or an uptight, pearl-wearing British PA in Schuster’s latest movie, Eales measures her performance and that of her peers on credibility alone.


“Essentially, if I watch an actor and I don’t believe them, they’ve failed at their job. Acting is acting, if you’re able to deliver a truth and a character and you’re able to deliver that to an audience, then you’ve won.” Eales is probably her own toughest critic, but she has a contagious charm and admirable determination that should be fuel enough to propel her straight to stardom.

This article first appeared in CitiVibe in The Citizen on Wednesday 5 October 2011.


The Wild is on M-Net Mondays to Thursdays at 6pm. Eales’s character Sara van Reenen will be introduced from November. 

Open wide

Shark filmmaker Jeff Kurr on overcoming his ‘Jaws’-inspired fear

Jeff Kurr is a Los Angeles-based film-maker whose up close and personal shots of great white sharks make the iconic movie Jaws look like child’s play.

He has been filming for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week since 1991, and although he’s done nearly 30 shark doccies, he’s first to admit it took him a long time to overcome his “Jaws-inspired fear of sharks”.

There are many fascinating angles to explore when it comes to sharks and their behaviour, but in Great White Invasion – here’s the part where the hair on your neck stands on end – Kurr and his team have specifically focused their investigation on why Great White sharks are coming closer to our shores.

“What we have seen all around the world in a lot of popular beaches is that Great White sharks are coming closer and closer to shore,” he says. “We wanted to figure out why that is, and why they wouldn’t be attacking people. That’s an interesting thing to ask, as they are often very close to people.”

Through his filming, Kurr has found a few answers, many of which depend on the area and the species of shark involved. In False Bay, he found that Great

White sharks come close to shore (right amongst swimmers) when they pursue food sources, like smaller sharks, rays and fish.

They also found that they may be coming close to shore (into around five feet of water) just to warm up, because the warmer water that allows them to expend less energy. Kurr says that one of his biggest challenges as a filmmaker has been finding fresh angles. But the sweat and tears all pay off the minute you film one of those scenes that you know will be talked about for weeks.

“One of the coolest parts of the film is where Chris Fallows, the host of the show, decides to paddleboard with a Great White shark in Gansbaai,” Kurr says. “The reason he was doing that was to show that, when these sharks come in close to shore, they really have no interest in people. But it was amazing to see a four-metre Great White shark swim right under his board.”

Even for a filmmaker as experienced as Kurr, there’s a first time for everything, and one of his most memorable shark experiences happened in Gansbaai.

“We knew that sharks came in close to shore, but we had no idea that they were right in the waves – two metres of water. So what we did is we got on a small inflatable boat to check these sharks out,” he says. “Basically, it’s the type of craft that, if a shark bit it, you’d be in the water with these sharks.

“That’s the risk that we took. But we had a feeling that the sharks had no interest in us, and they looked at us and hung around, circling the boat,” Kurr says. “But they really had no interest in biting us. And for me, it was just a

thrilling, exciting experience, because I’d never seen Great Whites in water that shallow, just hanging out. That was very cool."

This article first appeared in CitiVibe in The Citizen on Monday 29 August 2011.

Great White Invasion airs on Animal Planet (DStv channel 264) on September

7 at 8.05pm.

Hands-on history

The ‘Mud God’ Steve Brooker makes a living from  trawling the banks of the River Thames for treasures  

Steve Brooker answers to nothing except the ebb and flow of the tides and the muddy banks of the River Thames. Star of the History Channel’s new show Mud Men and a devoted “mudlark” (a member of the society of amateur archaeologists who are licensed to scavenge the banks of the Thames for historical artifacts), Brooker’s passion lies with the “hands-on history” he finds in the sludge and sand on the historically rich River Thames’s north side.

“It sounds quite sad,” he concedes, with a laugh, “but I work according to the tides; my diary is the tide tables. If you invite me out and it happens to coincide with low tide, I’ll probably come up with an excuse.”

Brooker made headlines in 2009 when he unearthed a 17th century ball and chain, but strangely it’s the “little” finds that  fuel his enthusiasm – items like a perfectly-worn child’s Roman sandal or a Georgian coin  rubbed smooth and engraved with a winged penis by a sailor headed for the brothels. on London’s south side.

“Mud Men is really about normal people – my ancestors and your ancestors,” he explains. "The foreshore was where the normal men from the street spent their time, and the foreshore  tells a million stories. The world loves those stories. These discoveries don’t have to be for archaeologists and academics. People at home watch the show and feel as though they could also do this. And sometimes, very occasionally, I do take groups around.”

While anyone can obtain a permit to search the five or so miles of the river’s southern foreshore, there are only 51 licensed mudlarks that are allowed to excavate the north side.  Strict rules, including one that states that all objects older than 300 years have to be taken to the Museum of London to be logged, are in place to preserve history and ensure  stories don’t get lost, Brooker says.

“Imagine someone came down willy-nilly, found something that may not have seemed valuable or interesting and took it away to store in their back cupboard. Then we’ve lost a piece of history. We need to have all the pieces, all that remains, to piece the story together,” he says.

Brooker loves sharing his finds with the cameras on Mud Men, but there are a few secret spots that he likes to keep to himself; spots that he says have taken years and years of experience to identify.

“The foreshore works in very strange ways. Sometimes it’s sandy, sometimes rocky, sometimes muddy, and you learn to look for certain things in certain places. I walk the foreshore with my trowel and I can see just by the way that the sand has eroded overnight that I will find something there,” he says.

The first episode of Mud Men airs on the History Channel (DStv channel 254) on Friday September 2 at 8.30pm. For more information on the show, visit www.history.co.uk/shows/mud-men. 

This article first appeared in CitiVibe in The Citizen on Wednesday 24 August 2011.