Tony Kgoroge

South African actor Tony Kgoroge has only appeared in a handful of movies since his film debut in writer-director Oliver Schmitz's gritty crime drama "Hijack Stories" in 2000. Yet he has already shared the screen with some of Hollywood's biggest stars.

In 2004, he appeared opposite Don Cheadle in the actor's Academy Award-nominated portrayal of compassionate hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the harrowing biopic "Hotel Rwanda," which was shot in Rwanda and South Africa.

The following year Kgoroge earned a small role in the Nicolas Cage political thriller "Lord of War." He followed this with a bit part in the Oscar-nominated, South Africa-set thriller "Blood Diamond," which co-starred Leonard DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou.

But his biggest role to date came in 2009, when he was cast in the docudrama "Invictus," which co-starred Matt Damon as rugby captain François Pienaar and Morgan Freeman as South Africa President Nelson Mandela. Here Kgoroge played Mandela's conflicted head of security, Jason Tshabalala, a role that raised his profile abroad.

After this, Kgoroge won a major role as a concerned husband of a dedicated educator in the biopic "The First Grader," which told the touching true story of Kimani Maruge, an 84-year-old Kenyan villager who devotedly pursues the elementary school education that was unavailable to him as a child.