Even though he describes himself as a writer who also acts, actor Chris Q. Radebe has left many viewers touched as King Dabula on Isibaya, and he lives for the reaction he manages to get out of fans who love to hate his problematic character

Chris is a head writer on Isibaya and in a recent interview with TshisaLIVE explained how this actually helped him with his acting, especially since his career in front of the camera actually started off by chance.

Once he realised he loved it, Chris had to be a sponge and learn quickly how to give acting his best shot. Luckily for him, being a scriptwriter worked to his advantage because once he learnt how to tweak that process so that he could apply it to his acting, he was well on his way.

“When I began I depended heavily on direction but then I realised that I had artistic freedom. Once I learnt do that with Dabula and I learnt with time that, as an actor, you have the liberty to give him those nuances and to give him phrases that nobody else uses, then I started having more fun.

In 2018, after having been told he has “an actor’s face”, filmmaker Angus Gibson randomly gave him a call about his first role as Romeo on Isithembiso. That was when the acting bug bit.