Kate Pinchuck on SAFTA nominations, bad auditions and Tali’s Joburg Diary

Tali’s Joburg Diary, the third instalment of the first-ever Showmax Original, is now streaming on Showmax, with new episodes every Friday. Tali’s Wedding Diary and Tali’s Baby Diary were the most awarded comedies at the 2019 and 2022 SAFTAs, winning five SAFTAs at each awards, including Best Comedy.  

Having shared her wedding in Tali’s Wedding Diary and then her pregnancy in Tali’s Baby Diary, Tali (Julia Anastasopoulos, aka SuzelleDIY, in a two-time SAFTA-winning role) is moving back to Joburg in Season 3, determined to get Jayden into the premium preschool, Little Angels Hyde Park, and reclaim her crown, or at the very least the title of Class Mom. 

We caught up with Kate Pinchuck, 2022 SAFTA Best Supporting Actress: Comedy nominee as Taryn Wiener, to find out more about this season, which is already getting five-star reviews:  

How did it feel to be nominated for your first SAFTA earlier this year?

It was great. Now I get to say it was an honour to be nominated. I lost the SAFTA to Kate Normington [Tali’s mom, Michelle], who is also in the show, which made it hurt much less because I really love her.

To be honest with you, the minute I got nominated, I knew I wasn’t going to win. But I was just like, ‘I’m going to be a SAFTA nominee all my life, which is great.’  When I’m 90, regardless of if I never get nominated for a SAFTA again, I will still be a SAFTA nominee because of this. And maybe one day a winner…

Where is Taryn when Tali’s Joburg Diary starts? 

So Goldprop has dissolved and Rael [Glen Biderman-Pam] and Taryn have started working in residential real estate together. She’s not very good at it, obviously. 

COVID clearly wasn’t good for Goldprop. How did you survive COVID personally?  

So to the best of my knowledge, I did not ever get COVID. I was paranoid; I took my precautions.

I actually took on a job as a high school English teacher in 2020, without knowing that there would be a global pandemic. So I was working full time and had a salary. 

Because I was just like, ‘I cannot freelance anymore. My mother’s sick of me borrowing money; I need to make some of my own. I was 27; it was time to move out of my parents’ house. Also because my mother had specifically asked me to. 

So I was a teacher and had to teach children online, which was a bit of a nightmare but at least I had a job. And a lot of my peers did not. It grew me as a person. 

I actually met the love of my life, and I got married during COVID. 

Congratulations! Why does Taryn move to Joburg this season? 

Rael moves up with Darren [Anton Taylor] and Tali, and later decides to start a takeaway property truck. Rael needs a business partner because Darren is very deep in his COVID hole, with his beard and growing vegetables and sourdough bread. So he says, ‘I need a little dog to my big dog.’ And Taryn will say yes to anything; she responds extremely well to authority. So if someone tells her what to do, she’ll just do that. So she’s just like, ‘Sure, yeah, I’ll do that job, let’s go.’ And so she goes to Joburg. 

But also they had to write that in so I could be in the series.

What’s your favourite place in Joburg? 

The Dunkelder, which is a really nice little theatre in Rosebank that I love. Or BGR, the burger place. They do a really good burger. 

Is the set of Tali as funny as the show itself? 

So much funny stuff has happened this season. 

Glen has had to kiss almost everyone this season, including me. 

I got slapped on the bum by a five-year-old while I was dressed as Wonder Woman. That happened twice, in one day. I didn’t know how to handle that incident. 

What was your worst ever audition?

I auditioned for a commercial once where they made like 20 of us go into a room and then pair up. We were supposed to be lovers, waking up next to each other in bed. They gave us two plastic lawn chairs as beds. And they were like, ‘Okay, so you can pretend this is a bed.’ Someone was like, ‘Can we not use the couch?’ And they were like, ‘No, you do it on the chairs.’ So we had to lie on each other and pretend to wake up in the morning and cradle each other in these tiny plastic chairs pretending they were a bed while 18 people watched. And I did not even get a callback, and I’ve never seen that man again, so who knows what became of him. So that was bad. That was very humiliating. 

If you weren’t an actor or a stand up, what would you be?

Probably deeply sad. If I wasn’t an actor, I would be a teacher. I don’t know. I don’t want other jobs. I don’t know what other jobs there are; honestly I don’t know what other jobs exist. Because, what? An accountant? I’m not going to do that. Dentist? Terrible. Next question? 

Watch the trailer for Tali’s Joburg Diary:

Stream all of Tali’s Joburg Diary only on Showmax.