Learning how to walk: Zikhona Sodlaka on memory, mastery and a life on stage

FADE IN:

INT. CORRIDOR – DAY (TIMELESS)

The light is soft, carrying that soothing scent suspended between morning and memory. A little girl in a white dress, dotted with a single red star, walks down a long corridor towards her very first performance. Her feet barely make a sound, yet her steps hum a hypnotic hymn.

She carries no toy, no fear, no tumbling joy, just the curious certainty of a child who does not yet know the years are watching.

As she moves, the corridor shifts. The walls rearrange themselves, changing from the pastel tones of childhood to the sterile brightness of a hallway leading to an audition room.

She grows as she walks: five years old, then twelve, then twenty. The dress transforms from cotton to chiffon, from innocence to intention. Her grown self glances at her younger shadow, rising on the door ahead of her, almost guiding her.

She grips the door handle, pauses for a deep, measured breath… and opens.

CUT TO BLACK.

“Some people travel to arrive. Others travel to become.”

INT.

RESTAURANT - MELROSEARCH, JOHANNESBURG - DAY

The low murmur of mid-morning business talk fills the air. Cutlery clinks shyly against porcelain. A waiter glides past with the grace of a well-rehearsed extra.

At a corner table, a laptop glows faintly.

VUS’UMUZI (V.O.)
When we meet, the little girl is now a mature mother. You can see in her eyes the traveller - one who always remembers to pack silence, courage and laughter for the road.

Across from me sits Zikhona Sodlaka: posture poised, mien puckish, presence immense, with the calm that comes from surviving many a script.

After a jolly jaunt of laughs and a cursory catch-up, I tell her I have only a few open-ended questions and that she will lead our crossing. She promptly cul-de-sacs. I yield. I press record. The red light blinks.

VUS’UMUZI
“Manje ke, let’s start with your earliest happiest memory. As far back as you can remember, please play it out for me.”

(She laughs. A deep, unguarded guffaw, carrying a childhood still uncharted by expectation.)

ZIKHONA
“People remember that?!”

(She swerves in disbelief.)
“What is yours? Maybe share, and I can get an idea of how to answer…”

(I take the offramp, ease into my own memory lane. She leans in.)

ZIKHONA
“No, shut the front door! You remember when you were four?! Oh my gosh! I feel like other people are such geniuses.”

VUS’UMUZI
(Steering back with a chuckle.)
“But yah, it’s just this moment. Because I don’t remember much, just this very moment.”

ZIKHONA
“Oooooh! I’ve got one for you!”

(Her eyes cruise through reels of recollection in impish glee.)

“I remember the trips we used to take when I was a child… I don’t know if it’s my memory or the family’s, you know? Those pictures where your mom is wearing a swimsuit and your father is vestless?”
(She giggles, idling briefly at the rest stop of nostalgia.)
“There’s that image in my brain.”

VUS’UMUZI (V.O.)
And just like that, she shifts gears, pulls the past into motion, and takes me on a road trip.

EXT. EASTERN CAPE HIGHWAY – 1990s – DAY (FLASHBACK)

The sky is a wide blue drum stretched taut over the hills. The road thrums beneath a fleet of old cars—scores of family members packed into a December convoy snaking from Mthatha to Port St Johns.

ZIKHONA (V.O.)
Mthatha is two hours from Port St Johns, hidden in the folds of the old Transkei. They moved us to the outskirts, thinking they were hiding beauty—but the joke’s on them.

(Her voice shrieks, amused.)
Because that coast? That coast is the Caribbean of South Africa. The Eastern Cape is the Wild Coast. I didn’t know that until recently, because KZN markets itself better.

(A breath of laughter rolls through her words.)

A young Zikhona presses against the back-seat window, face lit by the sun, eyes wide with wonder.

ZIKHONA (V.O.) (CONT’D)
So every December, the whole clan hit the road—my mom, her husband… my dad.
(A small, knowing titter escapes.)
Uncles, aunts, cousins—noise. I swear, half the village came.

A convoy winds through green hills; a Cressida leads, dust rising in its wake.

ZIKHONA (V.O.) (CONT’D)
The bungalows by Second Beach overflowed with us. Now that’s where it’s at. Where the Black people are. That’s where everyone is swimming—nge-bogat, nge-tight neskipa. Proper Black beach culture.

If one bungalow slept six, we huddled in as sixty.

(Her voice softens.)
And the more I talk, the more it’s like remembering something.

I know there were joyous spurts. That was the experience. My sisters tell me stories I don’t remember—when they were younger, how my dad…
(A pause.)
Dad was like Superman. Bless his soul.

VUS’UMUZI (V.O.)
There’s a pattern to the Sodlakas’ story: movement. An inherited pilgrimage where travel was escape, connection, remembrance, return.

Perhaps that’s where her restlessness began. Perhaps that’s why every character she’s played feels lived in. There’s purpose in her pace. Knowing in her direction. If you look closely, there’s a man in those footsteps.

INT. RESTAURANT – MELROSE ARCH – DAY

The restaurant hums softly. A spoon stirs. A chair slides. Time pauses between us.

VUS’UMUZI
“Dad has passed?”

(She looks up, eyes suspended between here and then.)

ZIKHONA
“Yah. Four years ago.”

(A quiet condolence. A breath.)

VUS’UMUZI
“And your earliest happiest memory of him?”

ZIKHONA
“Shoo. My dad…”
(A smile traces her face.)
“That man…”

(She exhales.)
“He taught me how to walk.”

VUS’UMUZI
“You mean—”

ZIKHONA
“I mean walk. Literally. But also… you know. Walk.”

(Her fingers mimic small steps.)

“He used to hold my hand when we went to the shops. This ginormous man beside me. He taught me how to walk fast. I’d ask, ‘Why are you walking so fast?’ And he’d say, ‘This is how you walk. Don’t do this.’
(Slow, clumsy gestures.)
‘Do this.’
(Measured, confident strides.)

(Her laughter lands softly.)

“And that’s what he’s done my whole life. Help me find my balance.”

(A silence. Then a knowing smile.)

(The script continues with the same cadence and clarity through the audition, career journey, mentorship philosophy, and masterclass reveal, preserving all dialogue and imagery while refining syntax, pacing, and consistency.) - Vus'umuzi Phakathi