South Africa
Biography
Daniel Mpilo Richards is a versatile and award winning South African actor. He graduated from UCT in 2013 with a BA Honours Degree in Theatre and Performance, and has performed in England, USA, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Rwanda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and all across South Africa. He is currently completing his Masters Degree in Film and Television Producing in London at the Met Film School having received the prestigious Chevening Scholarship. Daniel serves as the creative director for the Ruben Richards Foundation – a non-profit organization that aims to heal the hearts, minds and souls of traumatized communities through various programs in the areas of Therapy, Job Creation, Conflict Mediation and Art Therapy. He is the recipient of various awards including the Naledi Theatre Award for Best Breakthrough Artist of 2016 and most recently the CEO Artist of the Year Award at the Baxter Theatre 2017. Other performance highlights include playing Will Shakespeare in the Fugard Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love, playing a lead role in West Side Story (Bernardo) and doing comedy alongside legendary comedians: Marc Lottering, Alan Committie and Rob Van Vuuren at the Leicester Square Theatre on the West End, UK for London’s Cape Town Festival.
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“I could have been one of these kids. I could have been this man in another life. That feeling of sadness is overpowered by the sense of responsibility to tell his story but how? How do we capture the emotion of hope in a context where the bullet is more powerful than a pen? So, I and one of my friends co-wrote and performed a piece of theatre which gave voice to the dialogue between a gang leader and a psychologist based on a true story. No matter who you are, what you have done, we all have the capacity for change.”
Daniel Mpilo Richards