User blog:Paul.rea/Teen Wolf News 080517

Teen Wolf News 080517 With all the focus on the nostalgia of the past five and a half seasons of 'Teen Wolf' in the media in recent weeks, Teen Wolf News decided to turn a spotlight on some of the new characters we can look forward to as the final 'Teen Wolf' episodes play out on MTV on Sundays at 8 PM. This is the third in a series of interviews with a few of the more villainous characters we're seeing in the final ten episodes of the show. Be sure to check out our earlier exclusive reports with Andrew Matarazzo and Froy Gutierrez.

Meet 'Teen Wolf’s' Sibongile Mlambo
If I were the envious type, I would absolutely hate Sibongile Mlambo because, from the outside, it appears she is living a charmed life.

She is currently starring as a new “Big Bad” on Teen Wolf, the movie she did with Marvel’s Black Panther Chadwick Boseman just landed on Netflix, and she will appear in two new TV shows next year - Siren on Freeform and Lost in Space on Netflix. She is pretty much everywhere right now.

On paper, Sibo is an overnight success. In reality, “overnight” was 17 years of training and hard work.

You Might Call It Destiny

Sibo tells Teen Wolf News that the acting profession began calling to her when she was a child in the mountains of southern Africa.
 * “My oldest sister (Nomsa Mlambo) was an actress in Zimbabwe, I watched her blockbuster film at the theater, and that's what got me interested in acting.”

Sibo was just five years old when Nomsa landed the critically-acclaimed role in Everyone’s Child, five years later, Sibo landed her own movie.
 * “I did my first film when I was 10. The role was originally meant for a boy, so my brother (her twin Bongani) got the audition. I sulked so much my parents let me go with him, and I ended up auditioning as well. It came down to another boy and me, I got the role, and that was my first film gig in Harare, Zimbabwe.”

Around The World And Home Again

Five years after that first experience on film, she left Africa for the United States with her family. She went to high school in Texas, then moved to New York to work as an actor and model.

With a year and a half of experience working in the Big Apple, she decided her career would be better served back in Africa. Sibo settled down in Cape Town, South Africa where she booked a gig with Nivea that plastered her face on billboards all across the continent. While her inability to speak the local language stymied her acting work in local productions, international television projects began to come her way. Sibo appeared in the British comedy show Beaver Falls, Amazon’s Mad Dogs, and Showtime’s Homeland. She also did a recurring stint on Michael Bay's Black Sails.

She then booked two roles that put her career on the fast track, Honey 3 and Message from the King. The former showed off her acting and dancing abilities while the latter paired Sibo with an actor who was, at the time, just a hairsbreadth away from superstardom as a Marvel Superhero.
 * “I moved to LA after I shot the film with Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) it was one of the hardest things I had to do, but I am so glad I did!”

Road to Beacon Hills

All that work left little time for watching television, so Sibo wasn’t all that familiar with Teen Wolf when she got the call to audition.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“I had heard about 'Teen Wolf' but hadn't watched it before I got the audition. Best believe I binged before I went in, to get a feel for the show. There were four scenes for the audition; it was a lot but fun. I read with Jeffrey Gafner (casting director). I kept thinking how cool his hair was.”

<p class="MsoNormal">EDITOR’S NOTE: Teen Wolf News searched high and low for a photograph of Mr. Gafner’s distracting hair but was unable to locate one.

<p class="MsoNormal">Sibo’s read for the part of a guidance counselor/werewolf hunter Tamora Monroe grabbed everyone’s attention, none more so than executive producer Jeff Davis.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“She just came in on an audition, we watched it, and we were like, ‘She’s perfect!’ I would hire her again in second. If I’m lucky enough to do 'Let The Right One In' (at a new network), I would kill to hire her on that show.”

<p class="MsoNormal">In what may well be my first piece of Hollywood deal making, I passed along Jeff’s praise and the offer to Sibo.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, I didn't know that! That'd be amazing, Jeff is amazing!”

<p class="MsoNormal">Okay, so do somebody's people need to call other people's people now? Yes? Let’s make this happen!

<h2 class="MsoNormal">Becoming Tamora Monroe <p class="MsoNormal">Once she landed the part, the real work on developing the character began. Sibo says she is absolutely nothing like Monroe.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“Tamora Monroe is definitely not me!” She laughs, “I'm a scaredy-cat, I would not be going into dark woods at night chasing hellhounds!”

<p class="MsoNormal">In other words, she’s not really a badass; she just plays one on TV. There was also some other work to be done before bringing the character to life, work Sibo says was helped along by the entire Teen Wolf family.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“Everyone on the show was extremely nice, there were no egos. They were very warm and welcoming. I had a dialect coach to make sure my American accent was flawless. The coolest thing has been shooting all kinds of guns!”

<h2 class="MsoNormal">An Understandable Villain

<p class="MsoNormal">When the Teen Wolf writers conceived the part, Jeff Davis says they wanted to make sure Monroe wouldn’t be a cookie cutter baddie.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“Her character is a villain who’s not actually a villain. You totally understand her motivations. There is a flashback scene, which ties her to the bigger events in Beacon Hills during a previous season that you’ll see. It fits in quite nicely.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Sibo is hopeful the audience will soon understand what lies beneath her character’s murderous ways. <p class="MsoNormal">“Tamora is viewed as a villain, but I hope that when people find out the reasons behind her actions, they will empathize with her.”

<h2 class="MsoNormal">She’s Not British

<p class="MsoNormal">I always like to ask actors about the thing reporters like me always get wrong about them. In Sibo’s case, the answer was immediate and emphatic. “That I'm British! I'm not British; people hear me speak and think that I am. I am not.” <p class="MsoNormal">While even more success is waiting just over the horizon – She'll be a super-powered mermaid named Donna in Siren next summer and a woman called Angela in Lost in Space sometime next year – Sibo is currently enjoying seeing her Teen Wolf performance for the very first time on screen.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“I am so glad about how it all turned out. I'm watching everything for the first time with everyone else as the episodes come out and I couldn't be happier. The editors pick your best performances - hair,  makeup, lighting, music, the writing - everyone has put in so much work to make these last episodes amazing. I am very proud!”

We’ll learn more about Tamora Monroe in the coming weeks as the final episodes of Teen Wolf arrive. You can watch live on MTV on Sunday’s at 8 PM. The show is also available for streaming on the MTV App, or you can purchase episodes on iTunes and Amazon Video.