Who is South African actress Marié Botha?

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Meet Marié Botha, the South African actress who starred on an episode of The Penguin.

MARIE BOTHA STARS ON ‘THE PENGUIN’

Pretoria-born actress Marié Botha stars on the fourth episode of The Batman spin-off The Penguin. She stars as Magpie in the Arkham Asylum flashbacks.

The fourth episode of The Penguin is now on Showmax. The episode takes a break from Oz Cobb (Oscar nominee Colin Farrell) to focus on the origin story of Sofia Falcone (Critics Choice Super Award winner Cristin Milioti) and why she’s known as The Hangman.

“I play Magpie, a villain with a split personality and a penchant for shiny things. When we see flashbacks of Sofia Falcone in Arkham Asylum, we meet Magpie. She befriends Sofia, but eventually paranoia takes over and Sofia starts to see Magpie as a threat and a spy. This is the first time we see Sofia truly pushed to the edge and the outcome is dire,” she said.

“Playing Magpie was like walking a tightrope. In one way, she is this beautiful, dreamy, childlike creature, and on the other side of her sits darkness, trauma and vengeance,” she continued.

“It’s a gift to get to play characters that call on me to transform and put myself in parts of a psyche very unlike my own – Magpie is like that. She is troubled, haunted by childhood trauma, yet still trying to maintain positivity and look for beauty in her life. It’s sort of sweet and deeply sad. She is very dear to me,” she added.

WHO IS MARIE BOTHA?

The actress was born in Pretoria and grew up in Joburg’s northern suburbs.
She left South Africa at the tender age of 18 to chase her dream.
Marie studied acting at New York University’s respected Tisch School of the Arts.
After earning her BFA degree with honours, she enrolled in the masters programme at Yale School of Drama, as one of only 17 students in her class, selected from thousands.
Once she had the MFA under her belt, Botha started building her life as a working actress in New York, where she has now lived for 14 years.
It has been a varied tapestry of Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions, indie films, commercial voice-over work and countless auditions.
She also came home briefly to play in the TV series Erfsondes back in 2012.

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