Meet Marion Holm, the actress behind Suidooster’s sinister Sister Esther Graaff

Meet Marion Holm, the versatile performer who brought the sinister Suidooster character Sister Esther Graaff to life.

Originally from Worcester, Holm resides in Kraaifontein and fondly remembers living across the country working as a performer.

Marion currently plays Jill Peterson in the latest local offering on Showmax, Trompoppie.

“Jill Peterson is a very ambitious and ruthless woman, and she will get to the top even if it means ruffling more than just a few feathers. Jill is an actress, but she is on her way to becoming a has-been. It is very important to her to be famous – not necessarily successful – famous. She tries – throughout everything – to revive her career”, says Holm.

“Jill loves winning – at any cost and she ensures that she calls the shots”, Holm adds.

Trompoppie tells the tale of Luna, a talented gymnast, awarded a bursary to a prestigious private school she could never afford, she is thrust into the cut-throat world of an elite group of drum majorettes, aka “trompoppies”.

After a hazing ritual goes badly wrong, “trompoppies” start turning up dead and the seemingly perfect facade of the community begins to crumble.

Enter Jill Peterson – she secretly discovers Luna doing her gymnastics routine and stops at nothing to arrange a bursary.

Trompoppie follows the different drummies in a drum majorette team that is trying to win the national competition, as well as everything that comes with it, the pressure, the training, school, popularity contests, and rivalry between girls.

You can look forward to incredible dance routines - and unexpected twists.

What did Holm know about drum majorettes before she got involved with Trompoppie?

“I thought a drum majorette was literally someone who plays a drum with knee-high boots, throws a baton, and then catches it again. Not anymore!” Holm laughs.

“For the trompoppies on this show, that baton is people! They spin and swing and turn! Yes, it’s completely different and much more intense. The old drummies that I was thinking of are not where you can get hurt. This? It’s a whole gymnastics team.”

According to Holm, she loves the balance between comedy and drama.

“I like doing live comedy, simply because I control my timing on stage whereas with TV things are different. Hence my preference for TV and movies is drama,” Holm says in her best dramatic voice.

Holm graced our TV screens playing the vicious Sister Esther Graaff on the soapie Suidooster.

“I simply loved playing Sister Graaff, simply because the entire team at Suidooster was simply great to work with. It was just wonderful working with such a great cast and crew,” says Holm.

Holm’s Suidooster character, Sister Graaff had South Africa on the edge of their seats in her final scene where Moena (Jill Levenberg) decides to visit Graaff in prison.

What ensued was an emotional mother-to-mother scene…

“Look, all I had to do was look into Jill Levenberg’s eyes and my reaction would follow naturally and voila to a stunning performance,” says Holm.

This role earned Holm a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the SAFTA’s in 2022.

Holm mentions that she had never worked with Albert Maritz and to top it all he plays her husband in Trompoppie.

“Working with Albert Maritz was on my bucket list. I had never acted with him before, and it was more wonderful than I could have imagined.”

Right now, Holm is looking forward to performing on stage again. Considering she had a busy shooting schedule with Trompoppie, Holm will start touring the country again with her one-woman show, Marion Holm and Laerskool Noord, a comedy she, Margit Meyer-Rödenbeck, Ilne Fourie and Neels Coetzee enjoy taking around the country.

“People have had it with high petrol prices, load shedding, high costs of living and they simply love the distraction that comedy offers. Wherever we go, we are fully booked and what more can I say, laughter is the best medicine,” Holm adds.

Back to Jill Peterson… Holm says people often ask what the similarities are between the actress and the role.

“In my case, I think the similarities are that we use the same voice, face, and body. And that’s it”, Holm adds.

“Jill is so horrible with her child at times! Before a scene where Jill had to lash out at her daughter, I went straight to Luca Human (playing Elke Peterson) and then I said, ‘I’m sorry for what I’m going to say’, and then afterwards I hugged her again and said, ‘I’m so sorry! You know it’s just Jill! It’s not me!’”

What drew Marion Holm to the world of the performing arts?

“I wanted to be a nurse and that’s it. A teacher approached my parents and insisted that they take me for aptitude tests. I didn’t attend a school that offered drama. The results of the aptitude tests indicated that I would do well studying drama and the rest is history,” says Holm.

Holm reckons one of her biggest challenges playing Jill Peterson was wearing high heels.

“I’m simply not comfortable wearing heels but I have to make it work! Look, I’m a lady who wears comfortable shoes, and then suddenly, I had to wear high heels and my knees still hurt terribly because it was still before, I had undergone knee surgery. I can’t walk in high heels, so they had to be very patient with me,” says Holm.

Holm’s most memorable role was playing Liewe Heksie on stage with all the bells and whistles to thousands of children.

“I was all of 25 years old and believe it or not I badly wanted to play Liewe Heksie and it was one of the highlights of my career,” says Holm.

You would think the major theme in Trompoppie is about drum majorettes and the little team that has to win, but that is actually at the very bottom of the priority list.

There’s a saying that suggests if you don’t address your own wounds, you may unintentionally hurt others who had no part in causing your pain. In Trompoppie, there seems to be a notable presence of individuals who exhibit this behaviour.

“Raising a child is an immense responsibility, and I’m often surprised by the casual attitude with which some people approach parenthood. I believe it shouldn’t be taken lightly, considering the potentially significant impact and lasting consequences that come with it,” says Holm.

Viewers can look forward to a project that is completely different from anything else out there.

“Don’t think that you can get up and go make coffee, come back, and not have missed something,” Holm reveals.

Director, Etienne Fourie says he wanted to make Trompoppie for a much wider audience.

“Trompoppie is a love letter to audiences. It’s a wild ride but it’s entertainment, pure and simple, a whodunnit made to keep you on the edge of your seat, to get you excited to be the first to know what’s going to happen next before your friends and colleagues. I wanted my mother to be able to watch it, my sisters, my friends: anyone should be able to watch it and be surprised and entertained,” says Fourie.

Trompoppie is now streaming on Showmax, with new episodes every Thursday until February 8, 2023.