Largely recognisable from her most recent SAFTA-nominated appearance as Jessica in the Showmax series Troukoors, ambitious Ilse-Lee van Niekerk is a multi-talented force to be reckoned with. In an interview with MatieMedia’s Jessica Hillier, the intelligent, inspiring and incredibly driven Van Niekerk effortlessly shows that whether she’s acting or navigating the gaps in-between gigs, for her there is simply no such thing as downtime – she’s always enthusiastically in search of something new and exciting to broaden her horizons.
Actress Ilse-Lee van Niekerk describes her time on the set of the Showmax series Troukoors as “unbelievably fun”. She adds that the experience enabled her to laugh away the troubles brought about by two difficult years of hard Covid-19 lockdown. PHOTO: Jessica Hillier
In the first segment of a two-part interview, Ilse-Lee van Niekerk enters the Zoom call on a sunny morning in New York City (contrasting a gloomy late afternoon in Stellenbosch), saying she’s just shooed her, then-boyfriend, now fiancé, Brahm van Schalkwyk, out of the room.
“We’ve been long-distancing since he moved here in January 2020,” she says, adding that while she prefers to keep the nitty-gritties of her romantic life as private as possible, she loves him dearly and tries to visit him as often as she can.
“I am very proud of Ilse-Lee,” Van Schalkwyk says. “She puts so much love into everything she does, and it’s really not difficult to see that.”
Pictured above is an illustration of Ilse-Lee van Niekerk, and her fiancé, Brahm van Schalkwyk. On the topic of love, Van Niekerk says she loves love. “Love is probably the greatest force on earth,” she says. “It’s a greater than your body experience.” ILLUSTRATION: Jessica Hillier
Van Niekerk is the first grandchild of renowned Afrikaans film actress Leonie Pauw (née Ross) and says she’s been entranced by the world of acting and drama since she was a small child, joking that it is owed in part to being her ouma’s first “little project”.
“I think I got entered into like, all of the eisteddfods,” she recalls. “Mime, prepared reading, unprepared reading, poems, everything, and she would train me and prepare me for all of these things.”
She says her grandmother’s love for performance inspired a chain reaction in her family, especially for her mother and her mother’s sisters and brothers.
As the oldest of three siblings, she says she’s “the first one who really took to it,” but says of her two younger brothers, the youngest, John, also quite likes performing.
There’s not a family holiday I can remember that went by without us doing some sort of play.
“There’s not a family holiday I can remember that went by without us doing some sort of play that Ilse-Lee came up with,” John (22) says. “As a toddler, it would usually involve me being in some sedentary position, plonked onto one of the beds as a character that didn’t have to move a lot, with her building a bit of a play around me.”
Always growing, always learning
Van Niekerk says that even though the roles currently rushing her way are romance-related, she loves an intense drama, and she is intrigued by the “exciting and challenging” world of comedy. She finds the art of comedy to be an incredibly intricate and technical skill.
In anticipation of her 30th birthday in April, Van Niekerk has decided to challenge herself to a bucket-list of 30 things to achieve, places to go to, and skills to venture before then (one such recent accomplishment being performing a five-minute stand-up comedy routine, of which she playfully says there is no evidence, “but Brahm was there”).
Ilse-Lee van Niekerk, and her long-time boyfriend, Brahm van Schalkwyk, got engaged in June of 2022. Van Niekerk says they plan to tie the knot this year. PHOTO: Supplied/Ilse-Lee van Niekerk
“I’m always working on something,” she says. “Whether it’s prepping for auditions, or doing things for myself, like personal projects and writing, I’m always keeping myself busy.”
A recent “side-hustle” Van Niekerk has adopted involves channelling her love for people, offering guided classes to help others improve their public-speaking skills and to inspire them with the confidence needed to “get their thoughts out into the world”.
On writing, she says that, at the moment, she’s working on smaller future projects and sketches. Hesitant to give away any damning details, she also adds that she may or may not be gearing up to film a movie which will be released in 2023.
Make work for yourself, and keep doing your own thing.
And if all that wasn’t enough, she says she’s since completed the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), the entrance exam for business school, with the potential goal of obtaining a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in mind, to bolster her business knowledge.
She says that while she might still be thinking about it, in terms of the MBA, she can say for certain that “one day, far in the future” she’d like to obtain her PhD.
Home is where the heart is
Despite feeling “enormously lucky and privileged” to have studied extensively in the United Kingdom, completing her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in acting in England, Van Niekerk says that “nothing compares to South African natural beauty.”
She further says the support from her “loving” family through every endeavour in her life has been both comforting and unwavering.
Pictured above is an illustration of Ilse-Lee van Niekerk (right), and her two brothers, Lood (left), and John (middle). Van Niekerk is a family-oriented person. She says that her mother Liesel watches every one of her performances and has become an incredible and honest support structure for her over the course of her acting endeavours. ILLUSTRATION: Jessica Hillier
On being the older sister to two brothers, Lood (26) and John, with a laugh, she admits that with its ups and downs, she feels extraordinarily lucky to have them, adding that she can always count on them to “bring her back down to earth” and make sure her head doesn’t get too big.
“I do think they get a bit annoyed with me because I sort of take on the role of a third parent sometimes,” she chuckles. “I boss them around a bit, I mean, that’s probably not good – but sometimes I just can’t help it.”
“It’s very difficult to describe how proud I am of her and all the amazing things she’s doing,” John says. “And with all the hard work she’s doing and the recognition she’s getting, it makes me extremely proud because I feel like everyone is finally getting to see the person I’ve always known her to be.”
Ilse-Lee van Niekerk says that while she may love to act in more serious roles, she also loves to watch a good old animation film with her younger brothers, Lood (26) and John (22). She classes Shrek as one of the greats, but animation aside, says that her favourite movie is probably The Hours. PHOTO: Instagram/Ilse-Lee van Niekerk
Embracing challenges
Van Niekerk has prided herself for the moments in which she has been given the opportunity to embrace roles which she says really challenged her throughout her acting career. One such role being her “pop-star arch” in the Afrikaans kykNET series 4 Mure.
Enacting celebrity Desirée’s fall from the height of stardom to a devastating pit (over just three days of filming), Van Niekerk says the role was tremendously interesting from an acting perspective.
Ilse-Lee van Niekerk’s youngest brother John recalls a series of Instagram skits the pair filmed together when their parents were away called the Au Pair Diaries, imagining what their lives would be like had she been his au pair. “Whenever it was just the two of us together, we’d always use the opportunity to make silly videos and just have fun,” John adds. VIDEO: YouTube/Ilse-Lee van Niekerk
“My favourite role to play, however, was not from any film or movie, but was from when I was studying,” she says, recalling her undergraduate years spent at Stellenbosch University.
In her drama class’s performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, she fondly speaks of playing a role she describes as being “completely inappropriate for a university student” – a 60-year-old morphine addict. “It was just a fantastic play, and an absolutely amazing character,” she says.
Van Niekerk says she would jump at the opportunity to perform in a musical, inspired by her “whirlwind” adventures in the UK, with her in-depth theatre studies, casual strolls past the river Thames and attending countless Shakespeare plays at the Globe Theatre.
Love is probably the greatest force on earth.
“I love musicals. It’s just, absurd fun that’s both silly and wonderful,” she says. “But unfortunately, there are just less opportunities in theatre than in TV and film.”
On values, dedication and drive
To young and aspiring actors, Van Niekerk says her primary piece of advice is to “diversify”.
“Don’t put all your focus on acting because it’s just such a tough industry,” she says, adding that she and many of her fellow acting friends, as successful as they may be, experience “seasons where nothing comes through”.
“Make work for yourself, and keep doing your own thing as well,” she advises.
While Van Niekerk certainly shows that hard work and determination can get you far in life, she says the values she lives by – “kindness, humility, and either love or optimism” – are the real driving forces propelling her forward.
Her childhood best friend, Alice Sholto-Douglas, says she’s always known her to be an exceedingly compassionate person.
“Ilse-Lee has always, always been the most caring and thoughtful person,” she says. “The kind of person who can make you feel like you’re the only person in the world when she’s with you.”
Ilse-Lee van Niekerk says the acting environment abroad is “actually so much worse than in South Africa”, owing to the large volume of people out there trying to make their big break. “The opportunities are bigger than what they would be in South Africa generally,” she says. “But if there’s ten times more opportunities, there’s a hundred more people vying for them.” GRAPHIC: Jessica Hillier