{"id":267996,"date":"2025-10-01T02:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/267996\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T02:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:02:10","slug":"i-am-quite-tough-schindlers-list-star-embeth-davidtz-on-her-explosive-film-about-rhodesias-final-days-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/267996\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I am quite tough\u2019: Schindler\u2019s List star Embeth Davidtz on her explosive film about Rhodesia\u2019s final days | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Born in the US, raised in apartheid-era South Africa<\/a>, a reluctant star in her 20s following her big break in Schindler\u2019s List, and now a first-time director at the age of 60, Embeth Davidtz knows what it means to be an outsider. \u201cI\u2019ve always had the feeling,\u201d she says, \u201cthat I don\u2019t quite belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Normally found in Los Angeles \u2013 where she lives in a house once owned by Julie Andrews, with her husband, the entertainment lawyer Jason Sloane \u2013 Davidtz is today in Cape Town for work and family commitments. Speaking by video call from a cream-and-beige bedroom, wearing a white top and glasses with peach-coloured frames, her brunette hair tied back, she looks the picture of serenity. The effect is completed by her voice, which soothed millions of children when she starred as the perfect teacher, Miss Honey, in the 1996 film of Roald Dahl\u2019s Matilda.<\/p>\n

Through the Bobo\u2019s credulous voiceover, we learn that ‘any African might be a terrorist’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even Miss Trunchbull, though, would be intimidated by the bitter, sozzled, shotgun-toting character Davidtz plays in her directorial debut. She adapted Don\u2019t Let\u2019s Go to the Dogs Tonight from Alexandra Fuller\u2019s 2001 memoir about her childhood in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia. Narrowing the action of the book down to a few months in 1980, when the country was approaching the elections that would see it regain its independence, Davidtz\u2019s film filters events through the eyes and ears of Bobo, played by Lexi Venter, an eight-year-old white girl living on a farm with her older sister and their fearful, racist parents. It is through Bobo\u2019s credulous voiceover that we learn how \u201cany African might be a terrorist\u201d; through watching her at play with Black children, whom she refers to as \u201cmy boys\u201d, that we appreciate how deeply she has been contaminated.<\/p>\n

\u2018Like a wild lion cub\u2019 \u2026 Lexi Venter as Bobo in Don\u2019t Lets Go To The Dogs Tonight. Photograph: Entertainment Pictures\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Davidtz awarded herself the part of the girl\u2019s volatile mother, who is given to stumbling around in her negligee shooting at snakes, or getting on her high horse, literally, to try to drive Black locals off \u201cher\u201d land. The role was meant to be bigger. \u201cI adapted the book partly because I wanted to play the mother,\u201d she says, \u201cand to have a chance to chew up the scenery.\u201d But once she realised Bobo\u2019s perspective would be the most revealing, she pared back her own screen time. Wise move: it would be foolhardy indeed to compete with this feral newcomer, who zooms around on a tiny motorcycle in leather boots and tumbleweed hair with a rifle strapped to her back like a mini-Mad Max.<\/p>\n

Directing her was adventure enough. \u201cLexi is curious and funny and free,\u201d says Davidtz. \u201cBut if I ever asked her to \u2018act\u2019 or to learn dialogue, then it was bad and we couldn\u2019t use it. I had to grab things, call lines out to her, improvise stuff. I flew by the seat of my pants. It\u2019s like taking a lion cub in the wild and observing its behaviour, throwing something in there that might distract it or elicit a reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making the movie was never solely about Davidtz grabbing a plum part for herself. There was also the attraction of autobiography-by-proxy. \u201cI\u2019d been trying to write about my upbringing,\u201d she says. \u201cThen when I read Alexandra\u2019s memoir, I realised I could never match the way she captured herself as a vivid, ill-informed child. It was also more dramatic than my life, but there were enough little arteries running between them that I felt deeply connected to it. I remember saying to Alexandra, \u2018I think I know how to tell this story.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

People drove so fast. Violence was commonplace<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like Bobo, young Davidtz had to scramble to make sense of the madness and cruelty around her. Her parents, who are both South African, had been studying in the US when she was born, then moved back to Johannesburg when she was eight so that her father could take a job as a chemical engineer. How did they prepare her for the starkly unequal society they were about to re-join? \u201cThey didn\u2019t prepare me at all!\u201d she says. \u201cThey didn\u2019t prepare me for anything in life. I was raised by wolves in a way. I don\u2019t remember them saying, \u2018It\u2019s going to be different here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Different would be an understatement. \u201cThere was this incredible aggression everywhere. People drove so fast. Violence was commonplace. I guess the fish rots from the head down. You\u2019d see people being put in the back of police vans. I saw two drunk white blokes punching this Black guy who wasn\u2019t even doing anything. There was a creeping idea, not as much as you see in Zimbabwe in the film, but still prevalent, that the masses were going to turn on you if you were white. That was the myth the whites spoke about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big break \u2026 with with Liam Neeson in Schindler\u2019s List. Photograph: Cinematic\/Alamy<\/p>\n

It is one that Donald Trump is still doing his damnedest to spread. A period piece the film may be, but it also serves as a warning to the present. \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating when someone holds that position of power,\u201d says Davidtz. \u201cThey have to rev people up by convincing them it\u2019s all going to be taken away \u2013 by the \u2018radical left\u2019 or whoever the bogeyman happens to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Telling parts of her own story via Fuller\u2019s life has been cathartic. But what gave Davidtz the gumption to feel she could get out there and direct having never done so before? \u201cA couple of things. A lot of production had left LA. Back in the day, I could do episodes of Californication or Mad Men, things that were shot at home, but that had begun to dwindle away. As my kids got older, I felt less and less like I had a purpose. And then I got sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, in between playing the hero\u2019s mother in two Spider-Man movies, Davidtz was diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer. She had chemotherapy, immunotherapy, lymph-node-removal surgery and a double mastectomy. \u201cIt was not a great situation. People were very worried. I ended up being lucky and came through. And there was something I was left with after being so sick: that there is a singular road in front of me and you get your one shot at living a life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming a director also coincided with her disillusionment with acting, or at least with what she was being offered. \u201cIf a great director or a great part came along, I\u2019d do it now.\u201d She cites as a favourite the glorious 2005 indie comedy-drama Junebug, in which she played a big-city art dealer visiting her in-laws in the US south. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to take any old part with long, boring days saying lines that are so-so. I\u2019ve done that and it made me miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As long ago as the late 1990s, Davidtz was expressing dissatisfaction with her lot in Hollywood. Moving to the US from South Africa at the start of that decade, she leapt in the space of a year from the wickedly cartoonish Evil Dead sequel Army of Darkness to a small but indelible role as the brutalised housemaid to the SS commandant played by Ralph Fiennes in Steven Spielberg\u2019s Oscar-winning Schindler\u2019s List. Today, she places much of the blame on herself for what followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a deer in the headlights,\u201d she sighs. \u201cI said \u2018No\u2019 too often. I overthought things. It would have been better to say \u2018Yes\u2019 and not take too much time off to prepare for the next thing.\u201d Her first big role after Spielberg\u2019s movie wasn\u2019t until two years later in an adaptation of HE Bates\u2019s Feast of July. \u201cNobody saw it. I should have done two other films between Schindler\u2019s List and that one. The train moves fast, and if you step off it, even for a minute, it keeps going. And the other actresses on the train, they keep going too. Then you\u2019re left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t happen again. \u201cGetting sick amplified everything for me. What do I want every day to look like? What do I want to accomplish with my life?\u201d She turned 60 last month. \u201cThere was something depressing about it. Fifty was a great one: I\u2019d beaten cancer and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m alive! Yeah!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, not many people can celebrate their 60th birthday with the release of a debut film of such power and originality. \u201cThat was the thing. So I told myself to forget the number. My 50s were about getting this one off the ground. I\u2019m going to make the first half of my 60s about piecing the next one together.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now she knows she has it in her. \u201cMaking Don\u2019t Let\u2019s Go became this do-or-die thing. Like fighting through all the surgeries and treatment and six months of chemo. It was imperative. There was nothing else to do but to do it.\u201d So there\u2019s no confusing Davidtz with the winsome Miss Honey. \u201cI am quite tough,\u201d she smiles. \u201cPeople think I\u2019m not. But there\u2019s grit in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Let\u2019s Go to the Dogs Tonight is in cinemas from 3 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born in the US, raised in apartheid-era South Africa, a reluctant star in her 20s following her big…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":267997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-267996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115296452376427343","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}