‘Don’t ask about topless kiss’
  Jun 04, 2009 Gabisile Ndebele

Aunty M-Net protects US soapie stars from media’s embarrassing questions
M-NET has secured two of the stars of the hit US drama Brothers and Sisters to trumpet the series’ third season in South Africa, to start in August.
They are Dave Annable, who plays the role of the youngest brother, Justin Walker, and Luke MacFarlane, who plays the lover of the middle brother, Kevin Walker.
But reporters were forbidden by the broadcaster to ask the actors personal questions, at least one of which would have been about the recent scandal involving series co-star Balthazar Getty, who ditched his wife — fashion designer Rosetta Millington, with whom he has four children — for British starlet Sienna Miller.
In 2008, paparazzi snapped Getty kissing a topless Miller on holiday in Italy, soon after his wife gave birth to their fourth child.
Getty and Millington have since separated but have yet to start divorce proceedings. London’s Daily Mail reported that Miller dumped Getty last month for having “too much baggage”.
Also last year, Getty was reportedly booted out of the series as a regular character. This followed a reported fall-out with other cast members about his affair, but the show’s producers cited plot lines and budgetary factors for their decision.
Annable and MacFarlane have put up at Sol Kerzner’s luxurious One & Only hotel, in Cape Town.
MacFarlane says he is “dying to meet” retired archbishop Desmond Tutu for the second time. He first met the Nobel prize winner in Canada when he was 13.
“He was such a wise and inspiring person, so to meet him while I am visiting his country would be such an honour again,” he said.
MacFarlane says that, unlike his character, he is neither gay nor long-suffering.
Annable — an admitted “goof ball” and video game junkie, who says he is neither “intense” nor a drug addict like his character — said he couldn’t wait to return to the US to tell all his friends and family what a “beautiful country South Africa is, and how the people are so generous and friendly”.
Brothers and Sisters revolves around the upper-crust Walker family, who discover that their late father had a lengthy affair and that they have a younger sibling.
The show also stars two-times Oscar winner Sally Field and Calista Flockhart. Annable said working with them was “like a dream”.
“I feel like asking them for autographs every day we are at work in case my job doesn’t work out — then I can just sell their signatures on e-Bay,” he joked.
Annable and MacFarlane arrived in South Africa on Monday and will return to the US tomorrow.
They have already visited Cape Point, and will visit the Sabi Sabi game reserve, near the Kruger National Park.
“Its such a pity that we couldn’t get to Table Mountain because I have heard so much about it. We tried to go yesterday but were told it was closed,” Annable said.
“But I am going to come back in summer to this beautiful place, just to go to that mountain.”