
Ian Roberts
Acting
Biography
Ian Roberts is a South African actor, playwright and singer best known to television viewers for his roles in the drama series Arende and Snitch, and as the character Boet in a series of long-running advertisements for Castrol motor oil. Roberts was born in Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape and raised on a citrus farm near the town. He attended St. Andrew's Preparatory School and St. Andrew's College in Grahamstown. After completing high school he performed his compulsory national service in the South African Army, which he completed in 1971. After a variety of different jobs and a course in photography at the Port Elizabeth Technical College from 1973 to 1975, Roberts enrolled at Rhodes University in 1976 for a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Speech, Drama and Social Anthropology. Ian Roberts has built up an extensive acting career in theatre, television and film. Roberts was married to South African actress Michele Botes, but the couple divorced in 1999. They have two children.
Known For

The Wild is a South African soap opera created by Rohan Dickson, Richard Nosworthy and Bronwyn Berry and produced by M-Net's in-house production arm Magic Factory and shot entirely on location which revolves around three families – the Lebones, the van Reenens and the Tladis - who, because of past conflicts, struggle to negotiate a cohesive future, despite being bound together by their relationship to a special piece of land.
The Wild

Renowned safari hunter Allan Quatermain is lured back into the unknown recesses of the African jungles to find a man who disappeared while searching for the fabled King Solomon's Mines--a destination of legendary riches from which no soul has ever returned alive.
King Solomon's Mines

A South African Afrikaans series about broken families and the lies and deceit within them and how sins committed to do good can come back to haunt families when they least expect it.
Erfsondes

When Gummer is hired to capture a deadly creature terrorizing South Africa, he and his new sidekick, Travis Welker, engage in another battle of survival against the fiercely aggressive Graboids.
Tremors 5: Bloodlines

A young girl from London moves to Africa with her parents where she befriends a lion cub.
Mia and the White Lion

A game show in which top Afrikaans music artists and their fans battle it out in the studio in a tough music quiz.
Musiekpaniek

Onder Draai die Duiwel Rond is a South African television drama series created and written by Chris Barnard and produced by Sonneblom Films about beautiful people, good wine and respectable neighbours living on the banks of the Hartebeespoort Dam with lives that are seemingly idyllically peaceful and romantic, but which harbour deep secrets just beneath the surface of the facade.
Onder Draai Die Duiwel Rond

Epic drama follows a group of Boers during significant events in South African history. The first series is primarily set on St. Helena and follows the lives of Boer prisoners-of-war at Deadwood Camp. Among them is Sloet Steenkamp, a Cape Rebel whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the island. The second series shifts to post-war mainland South Africa, where the Boers, though returned, still struggle for freedom. New characters are introduced, including Meisie, who is mute due to trauma, and her mother Cornelia, who seeks revenge. In the third series, Sloet and his friends, yearning to escape British rule, embark on the Dorsland Trek, a perilous journey across the Kalahari Desert in search of freedom beyond South Africa's borders.
Arende

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.
The Power of One

Cape Town. Police captain Mat Joubert used to be the best, solved every crime, got every killer. But that was a year ago, before his wife Lara was murdered while working undercover. Mat's been on a downward spiral ever since, haunted by a blurred past, uncertain which role he played in the murder of his wife. Now Mat is an out of shape chain smoker who is ambivalent about the crime-ridden world around him. Gradually, Mat begins to overcome the ghosts of his past. But in order to stop the violence of his current cases he must relive the nightmare of his wife's murder.
Cape Town

A South African political prisoner is tortured to obtain information on apartheid conspirators. Ten years later, the head officer in charge of the questioning is similarly held as prisoner and questioned about his past offenses.
Inside

Dolph Lundgren is Christian Erickson, a leading demolition expert trained to disarm mine fields in a humanitarian minesweeping operation in Angola. His son is killed and he discovers that mines are being planted during the war to kill people in the area.
Sweepers

Inspired by the true story of indomitable Kuki Gallmann, the film tells of a beautiful and inquisitive woman who had the courage to escape from her comfortable yet monotonous life in Italy to start anew in the African wilderness with her son, Emanuele, and her new husband, Paolo. Gallmann faces great danger there but eventually becomes a celebrated conservationist.
I Dreamed of Africa

Set on a game reserve in Africa. Askari is an angry old elephant, the only survivor of the "A' family group which has been anhilitated in a government cull and he has turned rogue. Involved in the culling are Patrick Khumalo, a corrupt government official and Ribshaw, an unscrupulous white poacher accompanied by Ndhlovu, an old African tracker who is being blackmailed by Ribshaw. Anxious to save the elephants are game warden Joss Mckinley and his conservationist wife Paula who is studying and monitoring various family groups of elephants. When Paula's sixteen year old niece Emma Crawshay is orphaned she is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at Morena Game Park. She feels alienated but is gradually drawn into her aunt's passion for her work and her favourite elephant family the 'O' group, in particular a calf named Ollie.
Askari

The drama series moves between the present and the nineties in Langkloof where Lisa and Henriëtte share their close teenage friendship and dreams, but a series of dark secrets ultimately drive the two apart.
Appels en Tee

Sarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.
Red Dust

A South-African preacher goes to search for his wayward son who has committed a crime in the big city.
Cry, the Beloved Country

A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.
Tsotsi

Movie version cut from the TV series (Arende) Epic drama of honor, passion and freedom set during the Anglo-Boer War and follows the bound fates of rebellious Boer farmer Sloet Steenkamp and Captain of the British Army James Kerwin. A period drama of a time when Britain colonised by might in Southern Africa. Sloet was a Cape Colonist who refused to surrender to the new rule, and was one of the Cape rebels. After being captured he and many others were taken captive and sent to British concentration camps in Saint Helena where Sloet was doomed to stay forever
Cape Rebel

Arsenaal is a South African, Afrikaans-language thriller drama television series created, written and directed by Jan Scholtz and produced by his production company Scholtz Films which is set against the backdrop of investigative journalism, corrupt security companies and corrupt police.