I feel free when I see no one and nobody knows my name

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It's a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed and invisible.

It's a lot easier to stay under the radar, have people be like, 'You should get more attention, you should have more roles' or whatever. It's weird to have been doing this for 30 years and then all of a sudden [find fame]. I didn't think this would happen. I thought if it was going to happen, it would happen in my 20s. So I'm grateful, and it's really nice to have choices. But it feels vulnerable.

We were in Los Angeles. And we could go anywhere. No one had any idea who I was.

I think I'm actually in denial that I'm famous, it only sinks in when people crowd in the streets. My friends treat me like a regular person, which is what I wanted.

The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.

It's been so overwhelming because you don't expect people to know you or recognise you in the street, but they do. People are so friendly and even my own extended family treat me like a celeb. I have to tell them that I am not any different to before. It is crazy

I don’t want to become more famous because I don’t have any privacy anymore and I hate that very much. Outside of work I just want to be an ordinary person, not to be recognised, not a monkey on the street when everybody is looking at you.

Obviously people are always recognising me and I am often stopped by fans but half the time I forget about the fame and go about my life as Nobuhle. It is never in my head. I just react to fans in the moment. I go with the flow

I'm so much happier now that people seem to find better things to ask me about than all my "accomplishments" from when I was a little girl. I feel like that was so long ago, and so irrelevant to who I am now, that I am glad the focus isn't really on that as much any more.

Now that I am alone, I don't have to hide it; I don't have to hide anything any longer. I can let my face go because no one can see me; because there's twenty-one thousand feet between me and them... No, I don't have to press my teeth together or tighten the muscles of my jaw...

Once I was hailed as a prodigal son.
In other words, loved by everyone.
Now it's so different:
wherever I go, nobody wants to know.
Tried having meetings. Running about.
Same as I did when I started out.
Now though, it's different: wherever I go, nobody wants to know.

When women our age started in the field, there were very few of us, and we were absolutely on the margins. People pretty much ignored us. I have come to realize that there was a great freedom in being ignored, that you could go after huge questions, because nobody noticed.

Fame is weird. I’ve never been super famous. I’ve always been somewhat recognizable. It’s been the healthiest trajectory. [It’s] not a scary spike. I have my priorities. I know who I am. I know where I’m going. I know what it means. It means that I’m getting to do what I love.