Interview: Mapula Mafole and Mbulelo Katise speak about their roles in Expiry Date

Love, laughs, loss and games. Showmax is rolling out the red carpet with more original content in the form of local film Expiry Date.

Meet unlucky-in-love Musa (Mbulelo Katise, Duma in the telenovela The Queen), who’s having a really bad day as the movie begins. The love of his life Busi (Thandi Make, Beth in the drama series Judas Kiss) dumps him on the day of their lobola ceremony and the poor man is devastated, emotional and extremely angry.

To cool off, he takes a ride and soon meets the beautiful Phiweyo (Mapula Mafole, Busi in the drama series Saints And Sinners) on the side of the road where her car has broken down. Riled up about Busi and women in general, Musa decides to help Phiweyo to get a tow truck, and as they wait and start talking, they share an instant connection…

Heartbroken by Busi, Musa puts thoughts about Phiweyo aside for now and licks the wounds of his failed relationships, until his big brother Zipho (Ishmauel Songo, Japan in the telenovela Lingashoni) urges him to forget about love and his troubles and play the Expiry Date game with him.

“This game involves the brothers going on various date with multiple women, and when they’ve had enough of them before things get serious, they take them out on their expiry date and break things off,” explains Mbulelo.

But soon Musa gets involved with Phiweyo months after they met, and when things turn serious and he falls head over heels in love with her, Musa is faced with a choice: kick her to the kerb and keep playing the Expiry Date game with his brother (who expects his loyalty), or forsake his bro and pursue his relationship with Phiweyo… That’s if she doesn’t find out about this game he’s been playing.

A great challenge

“Phiweyo is a sweet young lady who loves to help other people, hence her choice of career (clinical psychologist),” says Mapula about her character. “She often takes people on as projects in an attempt to fix them, and she does so with love and care. She has experienced her own fair share of heartache but is remarkably able to separate peoples’ actions from who they are based on her understanding of human psychology. What drew me most to this character is her age and maturity. I’ve often played younger characters and I thought it would be a great challenge to play someone older,” Mapula adds.

Mbulelo says that Musa is a good guy at his core. “He’s hardworking and yearns to have someone special in his life and experience love that has meaning. At first, he isn’t keen on playing the Expiry Date game with Zipho. He doesn’t want to hurt women like Busi hurt him, but he also doesn’t want to disappoint his older brother, so he agrees to play along, even if it just brings his heart some relief, even for just a moment.”

Good chemistry

Audiences will notice that the on-screen chemistry between Musa and Phiweyo is very natural and comfortable, which makes you root for them and hope that things will eventually work out.

“Mbulelo and I got along well on set,” says Mapula. “I’m grateful to have been able to work with someone like him because he is a great actor and keeps things professional. We had conversations about the story and our characters before we’d shoot scenes to establish how we each interpreted the characters and their relationship and to establish what we wanted the audience to see and feel. We made sure to check in with each other often to make sure we were both comfortable and we constantly reassured each other. The energy was great, and we all just wanted to tell a beautiful story,” says Mapula.

Mbulelo also just has praise for Mapula and Ishmauel. “They are wonderful people to work with and not only did they make me feel comfortable on- and off-screen, we also had some great laughs and fun times while filming this special film.”

Funny moments

Throughout the film viewers will be in stiches with the hilarious things that happen to Musa and Zipho, which includes Musa being taken to a clinical psychologist (wink-wink) by one of his dates who’s eager to take their relationship to the next level (even though they’ve only been on two dates).

And Zipho gets the shock of his life when the girl he’s dating, Cindy (Ntando Duma), nonchalantly asks him for R50 000 for a make-over so that she can get a role on the telenovela The Wife. The poor man has no idea how to get rid of her…

“All of these funny moments and more are because of our wonderful director Sihle Hlope, who gave us freedom to improvise. It really makes such a difference when you’re trying to tell the story as best you can and make it exceptional,” says Mbulelo.

Lessons to learn

According to Mapula, the main lesson viewers can learn when they tune into this film is that honesty goes a long way. “So many unnecessary things can be avoided when one is honest and open. Another lesson that can be learned is that the silly games we tend to play can cost us more than we realise. You can miss out on something beautiful if you allow yourself to be influenced by outside parties who take things for granted.”

Mbulelo says that he’d urge viewers to watch this film because they’ll be entertained by great performances and experience a beautifully shot film. “The lighting work is exceptional and almost serves as another character in itself.”

Showmax has really gone out of its way to support the local filming industry and with Expiry Date and Blood Psalms available on its platform right now, your weekend viewing is sorted.