Watching the supernatural thriller TV series Siren, one thing instantly becomes clear: This is not your typical mermaid story. It’s darker, much darker. In the fictional coastal town of Bristol Cove in Washington state, mermaid folklore over generations suddenly becomes all too real with the appearance of the mysterious and powerful Ryn (imagine a predatory version of Disney’s Ariel).
As I binged the three-season series from Freeform, I was captivated by the performance of Sibongile Mlambo as Ryn’s sister, Donna, who, in this fanciful tale, is captured and subjected to experiments by the military. Zimbabwean-born Mlambo is an actor, producer, model, dancer, and philanthropist known for roles in Netflix’s Lost in Space, MTV’s Teen Wolf, and other popular series.
She also has Rotary connections, and in 2022 she visited the Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda to learn about Rotary’s work fostering community and connection there.
Sibongile Mlambo as Donna in Siren.
Image credit: Freeform TV
You can imagine my excitement, then, when I learned that Mlambo had also become a Rotary celebrity ambassador and would attend the 2025 Rotary International Convention in Calgary, Alberta. I scrambled to set up an interview with her there. Between many other appearances, she obligingly breezed into Rotary magazine’s makeshift podcast studio with a warm smile to discuss her life, career, and work with Rotary.
Tell me a little about your upbringing in Zimbabwe.
I was born in 1990, a decade into Zimbabwe’s independence, and so I was born free. That was a really special time. The different races were finally mixing and interacting, and there was a lot of hope in the country.
Unfortunately, once I got to high school in the 2000s, the economy was crashing. There was even a 100 trillion-dollar banknote that everyone called the zillion-dollar note. That’s how much the economy crashed. Things really changed at that point. You would go to the grocery store and there’d be no food on the shelves, long periods of time with no electricity, no running water. And so that led to the resilience that I have, which I feel you need as an actor because it’s not a linear career. It ebbs and flows. The culture in Zimbabwe is that you make a plan. Anything bad that happens, you figure it out. Life goes on. I’ve carried that with me through my whole life.
After I finished my secondary school exams, I took a gap year doing volunteer work, and that influenced what has led to my work with Rotary. My oldest sister did a Rotary Youth Exchange program in Belgium. Our high school had Interact, and both of my sisters were part of Interact. That was my introduction to Rotary.
What else about Zimbabwe? I mean, it’s home. I don’t live in Zimbabwe anymore, but it is home.
I read that you couldn’t always see yourself becoming an actor when you were younger. Why did you feel that way and what changed?
I did my first acting job when I was 10 years old in Zimbabwe, and after that I went back to regular life because I didn’t know what the next steps were. I would watch TV, I would see people in Hollywood, and I was trying to figure out, “How am I going to get from here to there?” I didn’t know how it could be possible and how it would happen coming from a small country like Zimbabwe.
There was also this thing of, if you don’t see yourself represented on screen, it’s hard to imagine that for yourself. When I think about the pivotal points in my life, when I saw Lupita Nyong’o win an Oscar and I saw someone who looked like me who had a similar background to mine, that’s when it was like, “Oh my goodness, I’m ready. Hollywood is ready for us now.” That influenced my next steps getting myself to Los Angeles.
You lived in Dallas to pursue your education at one point, and you also lived in Spain. How has living in these different places shaped your perspective on the world?
Being exposed to different kinds of people has been such a gift. At one point I was working in a restaurant in Dallas and everyone in the kitchen spoke Spanish. I realized that, if I live in Texas, I should speak Spanish. And so I studied French and Spanish in university. Studying Spanish led to me living in Spain. I studied abroad for about 4½ months. Languages are one of my passions because they are such a great way to connect with other people from different cultures. Even if you can say only one word in someone’s language, it breaks the ice. People get really excited when you can speak their language.
People use differences to separate each other, but those differences are actually a great way to get closer. At university I was the president of the international club and that was a great space to be in because there were people from countries that I had never heard of. We would explore Dallas together, and I’m still friends with some of the people from that group today. Me and someone from Mongolia had much more in common than the surface things that made us different. Our common thread was that we were all international students in America.
How has your Rotary ambassador experience been so far?
Rotary got in touch with me a few years ago to highlight the work that they were doing with polio eradication in Africa. That felt like it was aligned with my wants and desires. I’m very passionate about where I come from and things that happen on the African continent, especially if it’s for the good of our people and moving things forward.
A few years later we got together for an interview with a woman in Kenya who was part of a Rotary club there. She had an initiative where she was providing sanitary pads to girls in remote areas, and I’m also very passionate about women and girls. There’s a saying attributed to the poet Rumi: “What you seek is seeking you.” And so Rotary and I just found each other in a really natural way.
Sibongile Mlambo visits the World Refugee Film Academy at the Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda to lead a workshop.
Image credit: Esther Ruth Mbabazi
Is there anyone that you’ve worked with who inspired the shape of your career?
Charlize Theron. She’s South African, and I used to live in South Africa, working as a model, an actress, and a dancer. When I was working as a model, I looked at Charlize’s career and saw that she was a model turned actress, and so that was kind of my pathway. I actually did a movie with her when I was still living in South Africa called The Last Face directed by Sean Penn. It was a full circle moment for me.
When you’re not in front of the camera, you also voice act. How did that come about?
I’ve done some podcast series, and those were all very intimidating to begin with. I didn’t feel like I had the tools. Of course, now with more experience, I’m much better at it. But when you’re acting on screen, so much is said without even saying anything at all. You have your body language and facial expressions. You’re communicating the whole time visually.
Once you take that away, you only have the voice, so you have to engage in a completely different way and really stretch it out. Especially for my character in the video game Rainbow Six Siege, where I had to do death falls and screams. Like now you’ve fallen off a building, and how does that scream sound? It was fun, but then you don’t have a voice left afterward.
From filmmaking to voice acting to modeling and dance, you are an especially driven person, especially now working with Rotary. So how do you recharge?
I try to connect with my family and friends, the people who are really important to me when things are not going well. That emotional support is so important especially when it comes to my family, because when I’m with them, I’m just the little sister. It’s such a grounding thing.
Nature is also very important to me. My astrological sign is Cancer the crab, so I find that the water is somewhere that really recharges me. I live in California, so obviously going to the beach, and when I’m in South Africa, I’m in Cape Town. Also going for hikes, being in forests surrounded by green things. Nature is so healing.
You’ve helped center African narratives in other parts of the world. Why is this a personal mission of yours and how has the reception of African narratives changed since your career began?
I think Hollywood has been more open. At one time, it used to be, “OK, they’re looking for an African accent.” Now it will be more specific. “Looking for an East African accent” or “looking for a Kenyan accent.” At the same time, there’s still so much further to go.
And why it is important for me goes back to representation. It makes such a difference when you see yourself represented on screen. One time when I was shooting Siren in Canada, one of the crew members came to me and asked, “Are you from Zimbabwe?” She was from Zimbabwe, looked at my name and could tell I was too. It was such a special moment.
There’s something about inspiring people who come from a place that is going through a tough time. When I see something that I can relate to, it gives me hope. That is the power of storytelling too — transporting people. A form of escapism. Getting to experience something other than your own reality.
What projects should we be on the lookout for from you?
I recently did a podcast series for Audible called Sacrilege: Curse of the Mbirwi about an African American family that goes to Zimbabwe, so that’s a story that is obviously very personal to me, though it’s for a universal audience.
Something else that I’m very excited about is I’ve been working on a video game that will be coming out in a few more years. I’m also working on a short film that’s about an immigrant in California, which is one of three short films that will be put together to make a full feature film.
And of course I’ll continue to be out there enthusiastically amplifying Rotary’s message of hope and resilience.
This story was originally published in the March 2026 issue of Rotary magazine.