The reason I'm in San Diego is not because I want distance from South Africa but because I want proximity to the people I love. But I don't envy growing up in America. As ugly as aspects of it were, my biggest blessing was to be born a South African.

The toughest challenge I faced came right at the beginning of my career with 'Blood Knot,' which was trying to convince South African audiences that South African stories also had a place on the stage.

My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy... and I believed that I didn't really have a function as a useful artist in that anymore.

Obviously when it comes to the question of telling stories about other people's lives in a situation as political as South Africa, you get to be political.

I'm from a big family - I'm the youngest of seven - and my wife is one of four. So we always wanted a lot of kids. It's what we're used to, and for us it's what life is all about.

Your mortgage shouldn't have been treated as a wager - it should be a way to provide a home and financial stability for you and your family.

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.

My father ran an insurance company, but he passed away when I was 8. My mother was an economist working for the government of Liberia. But both my grandmothers were entrepreneurs in rural West Africa.