Peter Kawa on playing the anti-hero Malik in County 49

With an acting career spanning over 10 years, Peter Kawa has never played a leading role in a television series. Until now. In the Showmax political thriller series County 49, the actor plays Malik Maka, a disgraced officer who is compelled to save the new governor of Bwatele County, Nerimah Mkung (played by Wakio Mzenge), and her chief of staff – his estranged wife – from a local terrorist group called the Hive.

For someone who’s always been a supporting character, the pressure to get Malik right was on from the beginning. “At some point, most of the County 49’s story relies on my performance, and how I portray my character Malik,” Kawa says. “There were also a lot of other great actors coming on board and so you have to match up their energy.”

Fighting demons from the past

When County 49 kicks off, we’re introduced into the world of Bwatele’s political machinations with a shocking scene orchestrated by Kawa’s Malik. “I’m here…copy that Sir…No survivors.” Malik says before he and his team, armed with automatic rifles, rain bullets on a house. It’s an execution, orders from above.

It’s our very first look into Malik’s sins from the past and a revelation of the demons he now fights in his present. This is a man who has done some terrible things at the behest of his corrupt boss – the now deposed governor Okusimba (Ainea Ojiambo) – and whose actions have cost him, not only his job and reputation, but his family too. He’s on the brink of divorce, we soon learn when his estranged wife Debrah (played by Nyokabi Macharia) serves him with divorce papers. Debrah, it turns out, is in a relationship with the new head of the governor’s security detail – Malik’s former position. 

Looking for redemption

Shunned by almost everyone, Malik is a man looking for redemption, or maybe something close to it. Kawa describes him as the anti-hero of the story. “He has emotions, and a family life, and most of what he was doing was not really black and white as such – very many grey areas, so he was a very sympathetic ‘bad’ guy,” he says.

He (Malik) is also a man who wants to save the world – the very thing that drew Kawa, an ardent fan of superhero films, to this role. “He has a close family – his wife and son – that he wants to take care of. That’s the world around him that he wants to save. But he always wants to push himself the extra mile to save the next person – his neighbour, the constituents (of Bwatele) and even the entire government.”

This involves a lot of running and fighting, and Kawa, wanting to do his own stunts, had to be ready for the intense action scenes that County 49 demands.

“The moment I got the role, director Likarion pulled me aside and asked ‘How soon can you get fit?’ I had to enrol in a gym and undergo training for one month before we started production,” Kawa reveals.

There was also the mental preparation of playing a man fighting to not only save the world but his own marriage as well. And here, Kawa had to draw a lot from his personal experiences.

“When I read the script, I realised that this is a man who’s trying to balance very many things – work-related, family and his own personal convictions. I drew a lot of that from my own personal life,” Kawa says.

He adds, “Being married for over nine years is never an easy journey. In the script, there was a certain excerpt that I felt I was going through as an individual, and as a husband. And I knew it would work well to draw from the disappointment in myself for having not played my role well as a husband, and even as a father. So, I felt the anger and whatever I was harbouring within myself, and used that to channel the necessary energy for Malik.”

Catch Peter Kawa in County 49 on Showmax, with new episodes every Thursday.