The bubbly personality that Thembsie Matu gets to play on The Queen may be larger than life and able to help audiences escape their daily troubles, but the actress hasn’t had it easy herself and she shared one instance in her life when things were really tough.

Chatting to the panel of presenters on Trending SA, Thembsie remembered a time when life dealt her a hard hand and she had to go searching for her father.

“My grandmother passed away and I had to go look for my father. If that show, Utatakhowas there at time time, I would have gone to it for help. I needed to get money to register at school somehow.”

The actress said this was at the beginning of secondary school and she found a school closest to her home because she couldn’t afford transport. She added that while in the registration queue she heard that she needed money to register.

Thembsie said she remembered that her cousins would always point in a certain direction and say that is where her father lived. So she got on her brave face and went to search for her father.

“When I found the house, I was afraid to walk in because there were huge dogs, so I went to the neighbors house. Then they called him for me. When he’d tied the dogs I went into the yard and we began talking, right outside.”