The uncanny resemblance between ‘Smanga’ from Generations: The Legacy and ‘Suffocate Ndlovu’ from Rhythm City has many in Mzansi wondering if the two are brothers.

Moopi Mothibeli is best known for portraying the power-hungry and notorious psychopath Smanga on the soap opera Generations: The Legacy. Veteran actor Mduduzi Mabaso, who played Suffocate Ndlovu on Rhythm City, is best known for multiple roles in films and television series.

However, it is not the pair’s excellent acting skills that have Mzansi enthralled. Instead, the attention seems to be focused on the uncanny resemblance between the two actors. The resemblance has some people wondering if the two actors may not be long lost, brothers.If not for their age difference, the two actors would probably be doppelgangers. A doppelganger ( literally “double-walker”) is a biologically unrelated look-alike, or a double, of a living person. Moopi Mothibeli, born 29 March 1985, is 39 years old, while Mduduzi Mabaso, born 1 April 1976, is 48 years old.
 

 

The two actors are not brothers, nor are they related in any way. It’s nature playing its tricks on people.Folk wisdom has it that everyone has a doppelganger, somewhere out there in the world. Studies have shown that if fine details aren’t important, the possibility of having a lookalike is very realistic.Nick Fieller, a statistician involved in The Computer-Aided Facial Recognition Project told the BBC,

“I think most people have somebody who is a facial lookalike unless they have a truly exceptional and unusual face.”

Lavinia Paternoster, a geneticist at the University of Bristol, explained Moopi and Mduduzi Mabaso’s uncanny resemblance as follows:

“It is entirely possible for two people with similar facial features to have DNA that is no more similar than that of two random people.”