SENSE8 ACTOR AND STUNTMAN LWANDA JAWAR DISCLOSES HOW HE LANDED HIS ROLE & MARRIAGE TO UGANDAN OBSESSION SINGER CLEOPATRA KOHEIRWE

Kenyan actor Lwanda Jawar has revealed how he landed his iconic role Githu on Hollywood series Sense8.  Speaking in an interview with Buzz Central, the actor said he went for the first audition but he was not picked and he was called back to audition for a different role. “I first auditioned for the matatu tout role and I didn’t land the role so I was called back for another audition.  Mainly was riding a motorbike, I was auditioning for the stunt department but when they went through the videos, they saw I could do the role and that’s how I was casted,” said Jawar. 

On his career as a stuntman, Jawar said he became a stuntman while shooting Sense8 and he was later sponsored to train in Germany. “Sense8 made me a stuntman. There was a scene where I’m riding a motorbike upstairs, in that scene, they brought a stunt double from Germany to do the scene and the guy who came he was white, shorter than me and he was bigger than me and the make up department tried to make him look like me but on the first shot, the director said no.

There was a bit of a problem there when it came to the stunt department and I said since the guy is already here how about he trains me to do what the production wants. We went and trained for four days and we shot it, it happened and the stunt coordinator was so happy, they guy invited me to Germany, where I trained for two months,” he said

Jawar also opened up on the craziest things that happened on set, “I was a stunt coordinator for Mission to Rescue Movie and we were using guns. After the shoot, some actors decided to take a selfie and one of them pulled the trigger and the gun went off. It was so close to the another actor’s hand that he had a burn because of the gun powder. The worst thing the bosses were on set. There was also another time we were shooting a house burning and the house burnt before we finished the scene. So we had to wrap for the day and they house had to be built again.” 

 The stuntman also revealed plans to start a training academy in Kenya with hopes of training actors to be able to do their own stunts, “I’m planning to start a stunt academy for basic training for actors to know how to do things that don’t require stunt doubles, for example an actor being told to drive a car while saying his lines, this is something that every actor should be able to do. So I’m planning to start a training school for stunts, I’ve asked around and there are positive feedback, people are willing to do it,” said Jawar. 

Adding, “I’ve tried to look for insurance companies that would cover stunts but apparently there are no packages that cover such. I tried explaining to someone what a stunt is but he said, ‘you go looking for trouble then we insure?’. So they advised me to insure the company and whatever stuntmen I have at a particular moment they will covered with the company.” 

Jawar talked about his marriage to Ugandan actress and Obsession singer Cleopatra Koheirwe disclosing that he met her on set of Kona TV series, “We met on the set of Kona. She was introduced from Uganda and I was told by the producer to introduce her to the set and make her feel comfortable because I was the main character and from there everything went my way,” he said. 

Lwanda however says dating an actress is challenging, “We have one kid and hopefully we willy have another. It’s a bit tricky dating someone in the industry, especially when you are given a kissing or intimate scenes. When I had such scenes on Kona we use to talk about but she never watched it and I understand even me when she had such scenes it was challenging.”