Brandt in 2012, photo by Prphotos
Place of Birth: Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Date of Birth: December 2, 1981
Ethnicity: Cape Coloured [English, East Indian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Khoisan, Ashkenazi Jewish]
Lesley-Ann Brandt is a South African-born actress. She is known for her roles on the shows Lucifer and Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and in the films A Beautiful Soul, Drift (2013), and Heartlock.
Her family moved to Auckland, New Zealand in 1999. She is married to American actor Chris Payne Gilbert, with whom she has a son. She speaks Afrikaans.
She is a “Cape Coloured,” and has said “I’m a coloured South African…british, East Indian, German, Spanish, Dutch aka a Mutt!” She has also said that she has Khoisan ancestry.
She has specified:
My heritage consists of German… my last name… Indian, British and Spanish. My mother has the Indian, but is very fair and could be mistaken for white if you’ve never met her or you’re not from South Africa. Her father however was a very dark man with Indian heritage. Her mother had an olive complexion… My father on the other hand has mostly European heritage… (a white German grandfather on his fathers side and a white British Grandfather and Spanish grandmother on his mothers side)… but looks much darker than me. On my dad’s side, my grandfather had really dark olive colouring with green eyes and my grandmother was often mistaken as white during Apartheid. She would often sneak into white only grocery stores to buy food because no one really questioned her.
A DNA test whose results Lesley-Ann displayed on her Instagram page stated that her genetic ancestry is:
*30% Central/South Asian
*26% European
*21% East Asian
*17% African
*5% Ashkenazi Jewish
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