The acting industry knows no mercy, and actor and farmer N!xau Toma had to learn that the hard way. The late actor only received $300 from his role in Jamie Uys’ comedy and the box-office hit The Gods Must Be Crazy out of $90 million.
The movie was a global success, playing continuously from 1981 to 1984 in the US.
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The plot
The 1980 comedy movie is centered around a South African tribe who discovers a glass Coca-Cola bottle that has fallen from an airplane. They believe it to be a godly gift as it fell on their lap so suddenly.
This bottle causes chaos as everybody wants to get their hands on it but tribe leader Xi (Toma) tries to return the bottle in an attempt to restore peace. This decision, however, takes him on a comical journey to the “end of the world.”
Payday arrived
Toma was a star in this film and was featured everywhere. In return, film director Uys took advantage of Toma’s ignorance about currency and gave him $300 for his first 10 days of work. However, when Toma realized that this was unjust, he took action.
Toma was compensated
Toma was then given 12 heads of cattle instead of the measly $300 and he claimed them. In addition, he kept receiving $100 a month after filming ended. Moreover, $20,000 was added to a trust account that was set up in his name.
More about N!xau Toma
Toma was born in Namibia; he didn’t know his birthday. Before acting, he was known as one of the Bushmen, which means he was an Indigenous hunter-gatherer. He spoke fluent Jul’hoan, Otjiherero, and Tswana, thanks to being exposed to outside communities during filming.
Toma went through a cultural shock.
Filming for the comedy movie The Gods Must Be Crazy took place in Namibia and Botswana. Toma, however, was flone to the remote area of Tsumkwe in the Namibian part of the Kalahari every three to four weeks to help ease the cultural shock he had.
Toma’s acting career
A sequel to The Gods Must Be Crazy was released in 1989. His acting career took a strange turn as he filmed three action movies in Hong Kong.
His career ended in 1994 as he was able to build his family a brick house with electricity and piped water, and owned a car.
How Toma was discovered
South African filmmaker Uys discovered Toma in his village with his people, the San, living in huts and surviving on a few cultivated vegetables and cattle. There was no electricity where they lived and they had very scarce water to live by.
Toma before Acting
When filmmaker Uys took Toma under his wing, he was illiterate but very bright, nevertheless. At this point, he had only met three white people in his life, Knew nothing about what was beyond his village, and had no notion of modern society.
Toma After his acting career
Film Director Uys talked about how Toma was a natural actor and how he was very talented. However, with the new exposure to the outside world and all it has, he unfortunately caught two bad habits, drinking alcohol and smoking.
Toma tragically passed away.
Actor N!xau Toma tragically passed away in 2003, believed to be aged 59 years old. Police officials were the ones to confirm his sad passing near the place he was born in the remote Tsumkwe area of Namibia, southwest Africa. Toma is survived by his wife Kora, four daughters, and two sons.
