Frank Opperman strips away the ego and reveals his truest self in a new documentary

From the goofy antics of Ouboet van Tonder in "Orkney Snork Nie" to the raw emotion of Pa Lourens in "Nêrens, Noord-Kaap", we’ve seen our national treasure, Frank Opperman, inhabit a hundred different lives.

Now, we’re finally seeing his own. 

In the new kykNETdocumentary series "Frank", his son Frankie Opperman takes us behind the scenes of the South African acting legend.

It’s a road trip through the past, filled with old scrapbooks, emotional reunions, and the truth about life behind the "glamour" of acting.

The documentary follows the father and son as they travel from Frank’s new home in Woodstock, Cape Town, back to Johannesburg, stopping to see friends and visiting his old house in Melville, where he lived for two decades.

While packing up years of his life, Frank took the time to reflect.

He made it clear he doesn't want to live in the past, but admitted: “It was good for me to be able to look back at what I've done up to now at 65.”

Looking through old photos and scrapbooks his mother kept was an intense experience.

“One doesn't look at this kind of stuff every day. Going through the boxes and looking at photos and things my mother put in an album over all the years was like discovering many things all over again. Here and there, it got quite emotional,” he shared.

For Frankie, filming his own father wasn't always easy. He wanted to respect his father's career while still asking the tough questions.

“He’s your dad, and of course, you don’t want to tarnish his legacy, but you also want to take him to emotional places and ask questions that might be uncomfortable. We tried to do something different with this documentary, and hopefully viewers will see and appreciate the honesty with which this doccie has been approached,” Frankie said.

Through the filming process, Frankie discovered new family stories, some funny and some sad.

He describes his father as a man who “wears his heart on his sleeve and is always just himself: a guy without an ego and with a lot of flaws, like all of us, but at the same time someone with a soft heart who is beloved by his fellow artists, family and fans.”

Frank loved the experience of bonding with his son on screen, calling it a "privilege to be able to do this with my son and to try to show him what I’ve seen in my life so far."

He hopes the series shows people that actors are just regular people with normal struggles.

“I hope viewers will see we all go through the same things – and acting is just another job, and it’s not nearly as glamorous as people think it is. And hopefully I’ll do enough worthwhile work in the future for another doccie,” Frank added.