John Kani

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.

Yes, we have the judiciary, the Constitution, we're fighting racism on a daily basis, but these are all state efforts and are not the efforts of the individual. The individual has to commit to change, the individual has to look at the past and take accountability of the past; for the wound to heal we have to dress it together.

Working with my friend Sir Antony Sher is truly one of the highlights of my career as an artist.

I had to look at white people as fellow South Africans and fellow partners in building a new South Africa.

In Australia, I almost became a counsellor. At the end of each performance there would be a queue of sobbing people backstage. They all wanted to explain why they left South Africa.

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.'

Protest theater has a place again. It's not against whites or apartheid. It is against injustice and anything that fails our people.

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.

Seventy is beautiful for me. I am truly, at last, an elder.

What does Macbeth want? What does Shakespeare want? What does Othello want? What does James want? What does Arthur Miller want when he wrote? Those things you incorporate and create in the character, and then you step back and you create it. It always must begin with the point of truth within yourself.

My stories are about humanity, about the challenges of surviving and the constant fight against ignorance, inhumanity and complacency.

Shakespeare examines how democracy is built.