Over the years, many young actors have approached me: Vusi Kunene, Sello Maake ka Ncube, and Seputla Sebogodi. They all said, 'Hey Bra John, let's do 'The Island and we want you to direct.' But somehow, my heart was not in it or I was busy with something else, so I'd say, 'ja, ja, we'll do it.'

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. 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?

It is ridiculous to think we can erase racism in South Africa, but through theater there can be a genuine attempt to move on with our lives and build a better country.

We have to depoliticise our youth. We have to teach our youth that the word 'government' means them, it's something to feel pride in, not something to attack.

I have been on the Urban Brew board for many years and assisted with the artistic evaluation of the various shows that were pitched to the production company.

When I tried to do 'Waiting for Godot, it was such a controversy. I was tired of political theatre. All I wanted to do was 'Godot.' You know what happened? We were told we had messed up and politicised a classic that has nothing to do with S.A.

Shakespeare's words paint pictures in glorious colour in my language. They were written by a man whose use of words fits exactly into Xhosa.

I'd read Shakespeare in school, translated into isiXhosa, and loved the stories, but I hadn't realised before I started reading the English text how powerful the language was - the great surging speeches Othello has.

In the global push to stop gender-based violence, men in the entertainment industry need to join forces with women to end violence by men against women and children.

'Sizwe' is the beginning of protest theatre; 'Nothing But The Truth' is post-apartheid South Africa.

You found during apartheid a strange occurrence from the white folks themselves. There were those who did make a choice to speak out and stand and be counted in the army of human beings who believed in justice. And then there are those who left.

Inkaba' is about a feud between two South African families. They have been fighting for years, from one generation to the next. It's like those typical feuds you have in rural KwaZulu-Natal where, after a while, you do not even know why you are fighting.

In 1990 there were about 300 scripts being written demanding the release of Nelson Mandela. And suddenly we watched Mandela walking out of prison. So those scripts had to be destroyed.

Art is universal. When works of art become classics, it is because they transcend geographical boundaries, racial barriers and time.

In 1973, 'Sizwe Banzi is Dead' and 'The Island,' which I co-wrote with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, transferred from The Royal Court Theatre to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.

Before 1994, many South Africans used theater as a voice of protest against the government. But with the end of apartheid, like the artists who watched the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, theater had to find new voices and search for new issues.

The exchange rate of the Rand against the dollar, pound or euro makes South Africa an attractive location. The positive side of this is it gives our artists and technicians an opportunity to work.

Theatre has had a very important role in changing South Africa. There was a time when all other channels of expression were closed that we were able to break the conspiracy of silence, to educate people inside South Africa and the outside world. We became the illegal newspaper.

I don't think you automatically become an enlightened person because you are a daddy. But they will change you, of course - their understanding of you puts you in a different place.

I didn't consider myself to be pretty, not at all.

I don't know whether I inspire anything in anyone.

I say you play a part, you don't work one.

I'm very much of the opinion that to work is better than not to work.

I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word.