Catching Up With Esta TerBlanche

David Nash

When Esta TerBlanche, a former Miss Teen South Africa and a star of her country’s popular drama, Egoli: Place of Gold , decided to bring her acting talents to the U.S., it wasn’t long before All My Children snapped her up to play Gillian Andrassy, a troublesome Hungarian princess who was sent to live with her cousin Dimitri (Michael Nader).

TerBlanche came aboard the show in 1997 and enjoyed a fan-favorite enemies-to-lovers story, partnering with Cameron Mathison (now Drew, General Hospital ) for the Gillian and Ryan coupling.

“The people I worked with were all so wonderful,” TerBlanche says of her AMC experience. “It was such a privilege to be on the show. Cameron was just phenomenal and I feel so blessed that I was able to work with him. He really made every day just wonderful. It was just magical. I could not have been luckier.”

Forever stubborn, even after Gillian was killed in 2001 and Ryan donated her heart to Laura (Laura Allen), the character was joined by some former beloved Pine Valley residents (Jesse Hubbard, Natalie Dillon, Travis Montgomery) in heaven, where she pleaded to return and get her life back. Alas, she eventually accepted her fate and wouldn’t be seen on-screen again until a decade later, when Gillian’s ghost made a special appearance in the soap’s final weeks.

“When I came back, it was really emotional for me and Cameron. When we saw each other, we both started balling,” TerBlanche recalls. “Back then, we hadn’t seen each other for years, so it was such a touching moment for us.”

While she says it’s hard to pick a favorite moment from the show because each storyline was very special to her, one of the storylines she does cite as a fave was when Gillian had aphasia and couldn’t speak.

“I thought it would be great because there were no lines to learn so I thought it would be easy,” TerBlanche notes. “It was quite the opposite. It was really hard because I had to convey all these emotions without words to express myself. It was a big challenge. During that time, I was chosen by a few of the magazines as ‘Performer of the Week’ and I felt really good because I was able to succeed in that.”

ABC

Twice Blessed: On AMC, TerBlanche's Gillian married Ryan (Cameron Mathison) in 1998 (pictured) and 2001.

The decision to kill Gillian came after TerBlanche expressed her desire to return to her home country. She kept herself plenty busy over the last 23 years. Back home, she opened her own spa, explored her interest in the healing realm, and kept her creative juices flowing by working on several documentaries in South Africa with filmmaker Michael Kastenbaum. She also hosted several TV shows, including Supermodel and Carte Blanche .

“I did a lot of traveling with those documentaries, and they were so amazing,” she says. “We did something on the biggest snake in the world, and really interesting pieces that were scary, wild and amazing. A lot were on animals so it was right up my alley.”

These days, she splits her time between South Africa and the U.S. but is spending more time in the latter as she looks to get back in front of the cameras, and would welcome a return to the soap world.

“It’s definitely something I would like to get back into,” she says.

She also hopes to soon be working with her friend Mathison again and hints there could be something in the works.

“I saw Cameron recently; I was babysitting his beautiful dog Red, who had cancer, and he was doing everything for him. He was supposed to stay a day, but I kept saying he could stay longer, and after five nights, he started to walk, and it was such an amazing experience. A few months later, Red did pass away, but he got so much better in that time, and we had a very special time.”

Animals have been a big part of her life in 2024.

“At the moment, I am knee-deep into some animal projects,” TerBlanche says. “I grew up on a game farm, and just love animals. I’m working with a rescue project for some prairie dogs. And my Persian cat just had kittens, so there’s a lot of feeding going on around my house.”

TerBlanche is also doing her best impression of a real-life Snow White: There are five wild squirrels living outside her home, and she treats them like pets.

“They are very friendly towards me; they come in my house, climb on my couch, come to me and eat out of my hand…. It’s the craziest thing,” she says. “People are dumbfounded when I tell them. I have to buy these big 45-pound bags of peanuts every three weeks.”

And even though they all look very similar, TerBlanche has named them all and can pretty much figure out who is who.

TerBlanche is also involved in Create Your Breakthrough, a cancer foundation in South Africa started by Rudi Rebstein.

“It’s about helping people with cancer get the treatments they need and help fight this really awful disease,” she says. “I lost my mom to cancer and my dad also has cancer, so I just feel really passionate about this. I would be so thrilled if in this lifetime, we can come up with some kind of a cure. It would be such a miracle. Seeing someone go through this in front of your eyes is just heartbreaking.”

While she waits for her next opportunity in the acting world, TerBlanche is happy being with her animals and finding all the joy she can in life.