Born in the US, raised in apartheid-era South Africa, a reluctant star in her 20s following her big break in Schindler’s List, and now a first-time director at the age of 60, Embeth Davidtz knows what it means to be an outsider. “I’ve always had the feeling,” she says, “that I don’t quite belong.”
Normally found in Los Angeles – where she lives in a house once owned by Julie Andrews, with her husband, the entertainment lawyer Jason Sloane – Davidtz is today in Cape Town for work and family commitments. Speaking by video call from a cream-and-beige bedroom, wearing a white top and glasses with peach-coloured frames, her brunette hair tied back, she looks the picture of serenity. The effect is completed by her voice, which soothed millions of children when she starred as the perfect teacher, Miss Honey, in the 1996 film of Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
