Playing Piet: Waldemar Schultz on his role in Die Byl

Die Byl is a local crime drama series loosely based on the life and career of real South African police detective Piet Byleveld. Specialising in serial killers and working on, and solving, many high profile cases, he’s alleged to have had a 99% success rate over 38 years of service. Die Byl follows an equally brilliant detective in the brooding, dedicated and tenacious Piet van Bijl, thoughtfully devised by Waldemar Schultz.

The overarching story of this character portrait is that of a police detective whose undying commitment to his job spurs him on and impacts the rest of his life. Inspired by the man whose “job was always his everything” and going by his nickname, Schultz adopts the leading role and captures some of the South African super-cop’s eccentricities, from chain-smoking to referring to serial killers as his “clients”.

The opening credits to Die Byl have a haunting quality, reminiscent of True Detective (stream all three seasons of the HBO anthology crime series on Showmax here) a strong reference point for the dark, somber and driving tone of this serial killer crime drama, thriller and police procedural. A disclaimer before each episode makes it crystal clear that this is fictional and not intended to be a representation of the South African Police Service.

Schultz met the real-life inspiration

Waldemar Schultz had the privilege of meeting the real “Byl” a few years before he died at age 67, having lost a short yet brave battle to cancer. This meeting happened as part of pre-production with directors and producers, giving Schultz an opportunity to get a sense for the man whose expertise inspired the series.

Admittedly not looking at all like the real “Byl”, Schultz got a sense of the man’s “insular quality”, noting that “his eyes were always darting about, all over the show… just taking everything in”. He was an observant man who seemed to have a rich inner world, and there was a sense he was constantly processing – born to be a detective. According to Schultz he seemed “reticent to communicate on a one-on-one level”, answering questions in an indirect manner.

While there must have been some pressure to capture the essence of Piet Byleveld, Die Byl isn’t a biographical docudrama series based on his actual cases. This fictional state of play enables the writers, directors and actors the freedom to take inspiration from the heralded detective but not walk in his shadow.

Playing the same character for multiple seasons

When someone plays a role for as long as Waldemar has in Die Byl, one of South Africa’s longest-running crime series, it can become second nature. Schultz acknowledges there’s a great deal of foundational work in building a character like Piet van Bijl over several seasons, “so I don’t want to say it becomes easier and easier” but that “this is a song” compared to the soapie character he played every day for nine years.

When it comes to getting into character, Schultz has “no long stories about method acting… or shadowing real policemen for six weeks” adding “it’s not something I take home and get depressed about, I don’t really work like that”.

The script is cardinal to what he’s doing on screen, jotting copious notes when he rigorously prepares for each new episode and then making intuitive decisions on the day.

The secret to this brooding crime series

Waldemar wants his performance of Piet to be as real and exciting as possible for viewers. This is part of Die Byl’s secret to its success, delivering engrossing storylines and allowing each episode and season to play by its own rules.

Schultz describes the show’s progression as an “organic beast” and “something that’s got a life of its own”. This is testament to the show’s dedicated writers, who continue to build on its beloved characters in a bid to escalate and continually top the intrigue factor from previous seasons.

The actor’s favourite part of the titular role is when it comes to interrogation scenes, “where you really see the genius of Piet and how his mind works”.

While Schultz enjoyed shooting every season and loves the character exploration in dialogue-rich scenes, he’s also not averse to shooting action sequences where there are fewer lines to learn. 

Piet and Waldemar have a few things in common

Sharing Byleveld’s attention to detail, his broody vibrations and shades of his “extremely wry and dark sense of humour”, the two have common ground but are essentially very different people. While there’s been a marked growth through the seasons, Schultz taps into the character of Piet through his social ineptness.

The show has explored much of what makes the detective tick and reinforced his 110% commitment to the job, so if there’s more room to grow it will be as a result of external circumstances.

As an actor, Waldemar is “super nitpicky” about his work and watches the series in an attempt to “be critical without being hypercritical”. He explains that being hypercritical typically leads to him changing what he’s doing, which can do the character more damage than good.

Guest stars lining up

Die Byl’s main cast have traveled well alongside Schultz and include Lika Berning, Marvin-Lee Beukes, Tertius Meintjes, Milan Murray and Eric Nobbs. The show’s popularity and strong reputation has attracted many fine talents over its four seasons, with actors such as Deon Lotz, Marius Weyers and Sean Cameron Michael set to feature in Season 4.

Being a true team player, Schultz is loath to share details about who some of his favourite guest stars have been. Funnily enough, the nature of the detective crime genre and story format often means stars don’t get to see some of the fantastic performances from victims or share the screen much with murderers, or “clients” in this case, until they’re hunted down.

Shot in Afrikaans with English subtitles, Die Byl has a strong Afrikaans following but is also accessible to crime drama fans who are willing to “overcome the 1-inch barrier of subtitles” as Parasite director, Bong Joon Ho, so eloquently put it.

Season 4 of Die Byl premiered on DStv on 16 January 2022, and every episode of Season 1-3 are available to binge-watch on Showmax.