Thabang Molaba reveals how he snagged his first big Hollywood role in 'Now You See Me 3'

Earlier in the week, I got to chat with Thabang Molaba. Of course, fans know him better as KB in the hit Netflix teen series, “Blood & Water”.

A few TV shows into his career, the 30-year-old actor clocked a significant milestone by making his Hollywood debut in Ruben Fleischer’s “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t 3”.

And if you’ve been a fan of this star-studded heist film franchise, you know how big a deal this is for Molaba.

During our chat, he unpacked how he landed this role. 

“I obviously had the audition, and then had a callback, where the director was in the meeting as well. He was giving me pointers on what to do, what to change and all of that. This character was being searched for globally, and they couldn’t find the guy,” he shared. 

What’s interesting about this role is that the character is South African. Of course, Molaba nailed the auditions, landing the part of Lethabo Khoza.

Returning for the film are Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan and Morgan Freeman. The new but familiar faces include Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt and Rosamund Pike.

The film opens a decade after the initial heist, where a new group of three young magicians - Charlie (Smith), Bosco (Sessa) and June (Greenblatt) - pull off a seemingly impossible magic show.

Using deepfakes and holograms to emulate the legendary Four Horsemen, they manage to hack and empty the digital wallet of a corrupt cryptocurrency exchange owner, then distribute the stolen funds to everyone in the audience.

J. Daniel “Danny” Atlas (Eisenberg), one of the original Horsemen, recruits the magicians in their hideout after the show. He presents them with a plot, seemingly given to him by The Eye, the secret magic society, via a tarot card: to steal "The Heart", the world's largest diamond.

The diamond is owned by Veronika Vanderberg (Pike), the head of a South African diamond company. The business was started by her father, a former Nazi, and is used to launder money for criminals.

Molaba, who has been working tirelessly to land his Hollywood break for the past few years, is beyond thrilled to land this role. 

He admitted: “I’ve been going to Hollywood for the past three to four years trying to establish my grounding there, meeting the right people and all that. Now it’s beginning to fall into place. I was super, super excited.”

Of his homegrown shows to date, “Blood & Water" made him a household name.

Reflecting on the journey, he shared: “It’s been an incredible learning curve, I’m still learning a lot. Everything is taking the route it is supposed to. That whole journey alone was amazing. ‘Blood & Water’ really played a huge role in where I am right now, even the directors and the producers involved - they all played such an important role in me being where I am today.”

Most of Molaba’s scenes in the movie are with Pike. 

“My character is basically a sidekick,” he pointed out. “We do all the bad stuff together. I can’t spoil it too much as I want the audience to go to have a look for themselves and check it out. But overall, the bad guys, that's us …, that's where I'll leave it.”

Molaba couldn’t stop raving about working with Fleischer and his accomplishments, too. 

He said, “It was incredible. He’s such a great guy, man. Aside from his work as a director, he’s just such a great person in general. Obviously, his directing is great, and we’ve seen it in some of his previous movies.

"This was the first time he’s done ‘Now You See Me’, so that was a whole experience on its own as well, working with him, knowing his done ‘Venom’ with Tom Hardy. It was just great to get direction from him; he’s incredibly talented.”

As for the A-list cast, he added, “We interacted quite a lot on set, and those are some of the most amazing people I've ever worked with. You know, from work ethic to just how they are as people. They have a lot of humility and kindness, and that's one of the key takeaways that I took from being on set with them. They're so good at what they do; the craftsmanship is just incredible.”

Now that his ticked a big box in his career plans, Molaba plans on maintaining a foothold in Mzansi as well as Hollywood for now. 

He added, “I plan on making a name for myself in Hollywood and probably moving at some point. I think it's every actor's dream in South Africa to be on that side. It's tough, and it's very rare that we see our own go that side and actually make it big. 

“I'm planning to be one of the few who have … that success story.”

∎ “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t 3” is showing at cinemas nationwide.