LOS ANGELES _ John Kani is a South African actor, director and playwright who has earned numerous honors, including a Tony Award for "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead." He's so important to the theater world in South Africa that the main theater of the Market Theatre complex in Newtown, Johannesburg, has been renamed in his honor.
But it wasn't until he took on the role of T'Chaka in "Captain America: Civil War" and "Black Panther" that Kani got famous.
"I was in Atlanta waiting to go through customs and this guy says 'Hey, T'Chaka, come over here.' I went right through. It has introduced me to this international world and made me immediately recognizable, even in places where I have never been," Kani says.
A more important benefit from connecting to the Disney Studios through the Marvel movies was followed up by his casting as the voice of Rafiki, Mufasa's loyal adviser in "The Lion King" remake that's currently in theaters. The man who has devoted his life to telling the story of Africa through his words saw being part of the film as another way to continue talking about the continent he loves.
"Like all African fables. Like all the stories of our grandparents. They are all real. These things happened," Kani says. "I used to wonder when my grandmother would tell me what the wolf said to the jackal how these animals can talk. And, she would say in my stories, animals talk. Shut up and listen.
"Suddenly, I would be engulfed in her story. In 'Lion King,' the music is brilliant. The CGI is amazing. But, they are tools for us to tell a story to a modern audience. What makes 'The Lion King' so successful is that it is a very basic, strong story of once upon a time of how the nation ruled by a humane king is suddenly killed and the whole fabric of society disintegrates. Then as a people we have to decide to make it right."
It was easy for Kani to give voice to Rafiki because along with both being older than 75, he's convinced they have walked similar paths. As Kani describes it, both have "created those footpaths and intertwines with the little rabbits and the animals go through."
Kani feels a great sense of responsibility to do whatever he can to make sure stories about the continent are passed down to the next generation.
"We are sort of not at the level of entertainment that the Western world is. Everything we see on the play in the screen, we read, we take serious. We take that it speaks to me," Kani says. "And so wonderful to see how the Johannesburg South African audiences will say: What does it say to me? What does it make me feel? Why am I celebrating it? Is it humanity? Is it us? Is it our dignity? Is it our future? And is it what we want to tell our children?"
