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When I got the call to interview rapper and radio DJ, Proverb, I was excited to lie around, sip a few drinks and just have a ‘lazy’ chat. I mean, that’s what viewers of Celebrity Survivor, like myself, expected from this father of 2. His Survivor persona however, is way different to his real life personality. Charismatic, eager and bubbly are just a few of the words I can use to describe the brand new Idols host.

With the title of Idols South Africa host to your name, one would assume that a slight, arrogant glint in the eye would be expected, but the only glint Proverb has, is the glint of modesty. Perhaps the most humble, down to earth guy I have met in ages. (I think this may be due to his wife keeping him grounded!) He commented: ‘I may be on TV, but I don’t believe I’m famous.’  Good on you my brother, I like the way you roll! There’s nothing more distasteful than interviewing someone who feels that you owe them something because you’re biting into their time that they could be using trying to be famous. Ugh!

 So Proverb, be famous for being you and South Africa will be behind you 100%!

Catch All Access this Friday night, the 23^rd July at 7.30pm and meet your new Idols host, oh, and let me know if you think I have a career in rapping…

There’s something about touching back down in South Africa that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, about as warm and fuzzy as I felt on my latest visit to London where I interviewed the cast of Sex & The City 2.

 Having never been a major fan of the series, I was slightly arrogant in my approach to the task of interviewing the actors, however, when I sat down in front of Chris Noth (Mr Big) for my first interview, that all disappeared and I felt like a little schoolboy. You see, these actors are big. In fact, no, they’re HUGE! There is such a cult following of the series and I only realised this when a few people who knew I was going over, were trying everything to come with me short of actually climbing into my suitcase.

 So in a nutshell, albeit a fairly large one, this is how the interviews went. I arrived at the world famous Claridges hotel, where I was met by about 35 other media journalists from around the world including our very own Nadia Neophytou from Primedia, and began to prepare myself for the Sex & The City 2 press junket. I had about 8 to 10 questions for each actor, and having been given only 4 minutes to interview each actor I knew I had to talk fast. It was only once I had interviewed Chris Noth (Nadia will never again forget how to pronounce his surname) and had only gone through 3 questions in my allotted time, did I realise that there was no way in hell I’d get through all my questions, so I had to act fast and think on my feet. Each time I was introduced to an actor, they found out I was from South Africa and that’s all they wanted to talk about. Kristen Davis (Charlotte) was by far the most eager as she’s been here before. I eventually managed to tie her down with only 2 questions about the movie before she galloped away with more talk about her time in South Africa. You see, 4 minutes is not a lot of time AT all and the person who was most concise about her answers and genuinely interested in answering all my questions was Cynthia Nixon (Miranda). Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie) was also pretty concise but she liked talking about SA as well. I gotta tell you though that she has this way of making you feel like you’re the only person in the entire room when she looks at you, meets you and talks to you. The epitome of what being a Hollywood star is all about. Kim Cattrall (Samantha) is as old as she looks on TV, but damn, so sexy! She’s 52 and carries herself like a 25 year old. A beacon of hope for women heading into menopause. My last interview was with the man of the moment, the writer, producer and director, Michael Patrick King. What a terrific guy with a brilliant sense of humour to boot, I suppose you have to have one in order to write Sex & The City. The funniest moment with him was when he tried to speak in a South African accent…let’s just say I told him that he needs to work on it a little bit to which he dared me to do a New York accent, which I failed…miserably!

 I’m looking forward to seeing how the insert will turn out as I hope so do you, so make sure you catch All Access this Friday night at 7.30pm!

Gigi grants us All Access
Today has to be perhaps the highlight of my career in regards to presenting. Survivor Celebrity winner, Gigi, gave us All Access today as she invited us into her busy life and see exactly what she gets up to.

The day started off fairly mildly as we sat drinking coffee at 8am in her beautiful garden. We spoke about her life growing up and how carefree she was already as a child playing in the wilderness and camping out with her folks in Paarl. It was only when she went to University that she truly blossomed into what we see today. You’re gonna have to watch to find out how exactly. So after the tour of her home, the introduction to her parrot (which I’m upset to say didn’t quite go the way I wanted it to) and the sentimental ‘goedtjies’ shown to us, it was off to her home away from home.

Welcome to Lollipop Lounge!
It truly is a beautiful club with a very relaxed environment. Couches, cushions and a delicate red glow encompassed what an exotic dance club should look and feel like. The most exciting and, how do I put this mildly, most nervewracking part of the interview took place here. I’m not giving anything away here except that, well, I left the club with my legs still shaking…

Make sure you watch this insert Friday 28th May at 19h30! I definitely will…

Inside the Lollipop Lounge

Once again we were on a film set getting all the behind the scenes action of the upcoming Franz Marx movie, Susanna Van Biljon. Take the British song sensation, Susan Boyle, South Africanize it, and what do you get? A local dromedy about determination and living your dreams starring Karen Zoid, Nico Panagio, Kurt Darren, Shaleen Surtie-Richards and a whole host of well-known Afrikaans actors. We arrived and set about our first task of interviewing a few of the stars and trying to find out who this Susanna Van Biljon was. First up was, rocker chick, Karen Zoid. She is extremely funny and a sense of humour that would make even Jim Carrey’s top lip curl! We spoke to her about her role in the film and being her movie debut, how she found the change from stage to big screen. Survivor Celebrity host Nico Panagio was our second interview and truth be told, he was just as arrogant this time around as he was the first time I interviewed him on Survivor Island. JUST KIDDING!! As famous as he is, if I could say one thing to the wannabe hosts and actors out there, learn how to stay humble and true to your profession from Nico. A true “celebrity”. Having finished that, we head out to Joburg city where Nico and Karen had to be filmed driving a beautiful BMW M3 over Nelson Mandela Bridge. Not sure how that fits into the film, but I’m sure we will find out when it’s released. Back to Sasani Studio’s we went and had to sit around waiting for a scene to be shot before carrying on with our interviews. Now, let me tell you something, when filming a ‘behind the scenes’ insert, there is a LOT of waiting around as unfortunately, we’re stepping on the director of the film’s turf and we are at his mercy as to when we can interview his actors. Trust me, there’s gotta be some serious passion in you having to wait for 4 hours doing nothing! We ended up finishing at around 11pm (long day) with our final interview of the night, Feila. I mean, Shirley, wait, it’s Nenna…no no, sorry, it’s Shaleen Surtie-Richards. What a wonderful woman. Professional, funny, witty, an unbelievably charismatic woman who is thoroughly enjoying life and says she has never been so busy in her life and is so grateful that she can still work with various cast and crew from her Egoli days. So, all in all, a terrific shoot and I can’t wait for the release of Susanna Van Biljon later this year. One last thought, we never did get to find out who Susanna Van Biljon was…

Wednesday 7th October

So it was a pretty rough start for the crew down in Cape Town i.e Tammy, Ben & Chris after having their flight delayed to Joburg by someone who suffered a seizure whilst boarding. They managed to get to OR Tambo in time however and together we all checked in. We were all anticipating a 22 hour flight to Atlanta but were pleased to find out that it was only 16 hours! Look, 6 hours is a huge difference. Boarding the non-stop Delta airline to Atlanta, a slight wave of anxiety fell over me as I realised that I was now confined to a full aircraft, flying over the sea. Ugh!! Not great! On went the headphones, on went the TV screen and I delved into my first movie. The flight was pretty uneventful and besides the odd bit of rough turbulence, which Ben liked (freak), we arrived in Atlanta on time at 7.20am in exactly 16 hours and 1 minute. This was now the exciting part, we had exactly 1 hour to disembark, go through passport control, find our luggage, catch a train to gate A25 and board our flight to LA. Needless to say, we missed our flight, no fault of our own let me tell you. Passport control was slow and Delta lost our camera equipment, or forgot to pack it. So now here I am, on the next flight to LA. Here’s hoping our camera’s, etc get there as well…

Thursday 8th October

We made it to LA, following the flight path of the plane on the onboard TV’s that each seat gets (yes, TV’s on a domestic flight). We got all our luggage, minus the 2 missing pieces of luggage that will still hopefully get here tomorrow and finding Ben’s lock on his luggage broken and removed due to surprise inspections, climbed into the car of our awaiting Brazilian driver, Daniel and headed on over to our hotel. Heading down Rodeo drive towards our place of wanted peace and sleep, a stark realisation struck our weary heads that this place is made of money. You need to see it to believe it. I’ll explain this in detail and more on the other places of interest as our trip continues. But for now, it’s 5.30am South African time and I haven’t slept properly since we left, so…good night.

Friday 9th October

Woke up to the sounds of 97.1fm…still don’t know what the name of the station is cos these Americans talk way too quickly. We got an early start and made our way to the famous Beverly Hills sign. It was overcast which isn’t great for shooting in, apparently it’s cloudy almost every single morning but it clears up, but we made a plan nonetheless and once done with that we drove over to the money that is Rodeo Drive. Well, what a street. You’ll see what I mean when you watch the inserts but it’s basically the who’s who of famous fashion. Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Giorgio Armani,

Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, etc Now what was interesting, was that on Rodeo Drive, we must’ve seen about 4 For Sale signs on some shop windows…they weren’t kidding about the recession. Ouch! Serves them right for wanting to charge the public $5500 for a scarf…

Got ourselves a Starbucks coffee, which by the way, you can find on almost every single street corner (No kidding!) and shot on over to Bel-Air. The money there is just sick. Our driver told us that houses in Bel-Air start from $10m…$10m!!! I don’t think many of us can contemplate how much money that is. Anyway, from the fresh prince’s of Bel-Air it was on to the sounds of Sheryl Crow as the sun came up over Santa Monica Boulevard. From there we jumped on to Sunset Boulevard and visited the House of Blues, Roxy’s and The Viper Room…I photographed the place where River Phoenix took his last breath. Eerie, huh? Yeah tell me about it. Hollywood Boulevard was up next and a walk down the walk of fame was pretty surreal. All I can say is that, once you’ve seen the first star, the rest look the same. Oh, if you happen to come here one day, do your best NOT to look like a tourist. We had so many frikkin weirdos coming up to us wanting to show us around, hold stuff for us and sell us stuff! I’m telling you, LA is not for the weak at heart. However, I will go back again more open minded and accept the fact that the people that dress up as Captain Jack Sparrow, Shrek, Chucky, Catwoman, Superman, Darth Vader, Napolean Bonaparte, etc outside the Chinese Theatre, are playing characters just trying to make a buck or 2. That’s it! I was almost chuffed to get back to the hotel cos it was a long, mind bending day and I’m sure that our first interviews tomorrow are going to be brilliant.

Saturday 9th October

We experienced our first celebrity sighting last night! We went for dinner last night at a little pizza place on Sunset Boulevard and when Chris steps back outside after visiting the little boys room, he says that he thinks he saw a wrestler but he can’t be sure. So I take a quick peer through the window and, well, it’s not a wrestler but I can see how he could be mistaken. The big build, long hair…it was Fabio. I must admit I was hoping it was gonna be a little more exciting. Why couldn’t it have been Sable or Candice, hell even China would’ve been better. Anyway it was cool nonetheless. Our first interview was this morning. She is just absolutely exquisite. Margaret Gardiner, for those of you who don’t know, was Miss South Africa and Miss Universe 1978 and has been living in LA for the last 20 years with her husband. She’s a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press and has interviewed almost everyone you can think of. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Queen Latifah, etc so you gotta realise that I was nervous as anything but she made it so easy for me. I could write for hours but I still got a lot to talk about. When the interview concluded we decided that the Universal Studios would be a good idea but we were met with a team of security officers when we entered with our

‘professional’ camera. You have no idea how tight they are! Only home movie cameras allowed because we could ‘steal’ shots of the structures and rides and then use it against them. Yes, we’re looking at building our own Universal Studios in the heart of South Africa and we’re going to poach all your tourists. In a way, they have a point as almost everything is copyrighted. Yup, even the Hollywood sign…it’s copyrighted. So we shot what we could, had the most disgusting chilli cheese burger and fries for lunch and headed back to the Sheraton where our limo was waiting for us. Yes, limo. Our next interview was with child star Sasha Pieterse and her dad, Sean owns a limo company so he was kind enough to pick us up and take us back to their place for a sit down interview with dinner thrown into the mix. I was still reeling from the after effects of the oil infused lunch when we climbed into our ride but it was soon overshadowed by the aura emmited from Sasha. What an amazing 13 year old girl. She exudes such a maturity above her years that you can completely believe that her recent portrayal as a patient in the series ‘House’, made the Emmy Awards board sit up and take notice! Watch this space!

Sunday 10th October

Starbucks has become common practise as we stopped for some vanilla latte’s this morning when we headed for our first interview with Hakeem Kae-Kazim. You should remember him as the ‘Fresca’ man. He’s also starred in Pirates of the Caribbean, 24 and Wolverine. He’s such a down to earth guy with many a story to tell about life in Hollywood. Let me tell you, it’s not an easy path. We headed back to the Hollywood walk of Fame to conclude the interview and decided that it was time to do a little shopping. We only had 45 minutes to do it which is not nearly enough time. We did what we could, caught a cab and shot back to the hotel for our last interview of the day. Sitting at the bar waiting for our guest to arrive, our ears suddenly perk up when we hear: ‘Howzit, I’m hooking up with the guys from All Access tonight…’ We turn around and Stelio Savante is walking towards us. Now this guy has been living in the USA for almost 20 years and he’s STILL got his South African accent. What an ambassador!!! That interview was fantastic. Stelio has starred in 30 TV and movie roles and has absolutey no airs and graces about him. Interviewing him was like talking to someone I had known for years. What a terrific guy! I can’t wait for you to see these episodes so that you can understand what I’m talking about. Another busy day in LA is concluded as I climb into bed at 11.30pm…it’s off to meet casting director extraordinaire Lisa Beach, tomorrow.

Monday 12th October

The jet-lag seems to be easing off but I could still seriously do with one morning where I can sleep in. Daniel took a weekend break from driving us around but the little Brazilian is back in full force as we climb into his

car and head off to Starbucks before our first interview. At Starbucks we decided to do a quick link where I walk inside and then out with my cup of coffee. As we’re doing that the manager comes rushing out barking orders at us that we’re not allowed to film Starbucks! When we asked why we couldn’t…he couldn’t answer and just said we couldn’t. Paranoid is all I can say. Nonetheless we finished filming, climbed back into the car and drove off to visit Lisa Beach just outside the Paramount Pictures studios. Lisa, was absolutely incredible. An amazing woman with an uncanny obsession for our South African accents. Was very cute! We had a quick lunch with her when we finished and then made our way to the outskirts of LA to visit South African stand-up comic, Cokey Falkow. He’s just recently finished filming an international film in Durban and is up in the USA finalising various things before it hits the international shelves. He’s been living there for around 6 months and as hard as the acting industry is, has no desire to leave. With his attitude, right manager and determination to succeed, watch this space. Cokey is going to make South Africa proud. Now even after a pretty long day, we still found the energy to visit one of the local bars around the Beverly Hills area. It was the first time that we have done this and it was cool sitting at a bar, having a couple of drinks whilst watching the woman mime to songs. Entertaining to say the least.

Tuesday 13th October

Woke up to rain. Basically our last day in LA and we get rain! We still managed to get in a couple of overcast, close-up shots of the Hollywood sign as well as the odd downtown cut-away as well as have our last interview of the trip with singer to the stars, David Aldo. This South African dude is a coporate singer booked almost exclusively to sing for celebrity events. e.g. Demi & Ashton’s wedding, Rod Stewarts dinner party, Kevin Spacey’s birthday party, Dustin Hoffman’s 4th July celebration, etc The list is endless!! He’s been in LA for around 10 years and is releasing his album now. Some of you may have already heard his first single. Keep an ear out for David Aldo. We finished off our last night in LA with a great night out on the town with drinks and all you can eat Taco’s at a pretty famous Mexican place that see’s regulars like Jennifer Aniston. I’m writing this on Wednesday because I got back to my hotel a little too late last night… LA is something that needs to be experienced by everyone and I’m hoping that you’ll learn a thing or three by ensuring you keep watching All Access in the following weeks.

Jason