Award-winning actor Presley Chweneyagae is really riding the crest of a wave. He beat some of Hollywood's top actors when he romped home with the award for outstanding actor in a leading role at the Black Movie Awards for his performance in the Oscar-winning movie, Tsotsi. Chweneyagae beat actors Denzel Washington, who was nominated for Inside Man, Cuba Gooding Jnr for Shadowboxer and Tyrese Gibson for Waist Deep.
The awards recognise creative achievement by people of African descent in feature-length motion pictures and honours outstanding films portraying the black experience. "It's really thrilling. It was a tough competition.
These are the guys [Washington and Gooding] I grew up watching," he said. "Being nominated was enough for me because I knew that I was with big giants and I got lucky," Chweneyagae said from the US. "I'm not saying their performance was bad or anything like that, but whoever decided on me, I thank them.
" He said many actors congratulated him after the official ceremony. "I didn't get a chance to see Denzel. I'm not sure if he was there, but Cuba did come and congratulate me.
"When I stood there on stage, I didn't know what to say. "During the show I sat next to Spike Lee and afterwards he came to me and said 'Great work. I'd like to work with you one day'.
"Nothing concrete. But its good, especially coming from him," he said. Things are going exceedingly well for Chweneyagae.
A play he co-wrote with Paul Grootboom, Relativity, has won a Harold Angel Award in the UK, where it is touring. He celebrates his birthday on Thursday, when he attends the 38th NAACP Image awards where Tsotsi has been nominated. Since the movie was released, Chweneyagae has had a cameo role in a television series that is yet to hit the small screen.
His agent, Moonyeen Lee, said he didn't accept other offers because "they were not very good". Two were local and one was from the US. Two weeks ago Chweneyagae won best actor in a feature film at the Apollo Film Festival, and recently won the best actor award at the Bangkok Festival.
Chweneyagae nearly didn't make it to the US because of financial constraints. The National Film and Video Foundation paid for his air ticket.
News RSS