I was called, I asked myself if I could really make people laugh. I love challenges; when I was on set, I discovered that people that were behind the camera were laughing. So, it was then I knew I could make people laugh. I wanted to do a movie that I could use to reach out to my people because I am from Benin (Edo State). I just want people to know that there is a girl from Benin here even though I am more popular in Yoruba movies. At the same time, I did not want to leave my Yoruba fans and audience behind, so I just had to fuse the Benin language with Pidgin. I love pidgin. I am an Edo girl, so I love pidgin. After English, I can say pidgin is the next most popular language in Nigeria, so it was fun shooting ‘Osas’. It took me three months to shoot the movie. I actually heard that before ‘Osas’ came out. I think when people saw ‘Osas’, they had a different perspective. They said it before ‘Osas’ came out when they saw the promo. ‘Osas’ is a comedy and both are played by popular females in the industry. People just assumed. Yes, there are similarities, like the university setting, but I think that is about it. No, there is nothing like that between us. We spoke about two weeks ago and on her birthday too. We are good friends and colleagues. People just come up with different stories because they know that controversy sells. We are friends. I did not set out to be more popular in Yoruba movies. To start with, I am a thespian; I am a University of Lagos-trained theatre artiste. I can say it is providence. I get called up by English movie producers but anytime they called me, I was always on set shooting a Yoruba movie. With time, because I am also a producer, I will not limit myself to just producing Yoruba movies. We are working on an English movie titled ‘Taken’; we are going on set soon. I started with the English genre; I did some movies before I crossed over to Yoruba and got very popular. I used to tell my husband that when I started with Yoruba, I was not really fluent in the language, not to talk of reading the scripts. But I am good with language and very passionate about my job. With time, I got better and now I am a professional in speaking the language. My father was of the school of thought that artistes then were layabouts. He actually had something against female artistes because he thought they were promiscuous and that they found it difficult getting married. That was what he thought. I was in the polytechnic; I was about 17 years old then. My father and I are very close. When we talk, I tease him, I remind him that he did not want me to act but now I am married and still working. Thank God I am not disappointing him. He is very proud of me now. Anytime he sees me on posters, he calls me and prays for me. He only complains because he doesn’t really understand Yoruba very well. He is not so fluent, so he complains that he always reads the subtitle. He asks why I can’t do English movies so that it will be easy for him to watch. When he saw Osas, he was very happy. I am sure he did not know that I was going to come up with something like that. He was elated and very proud of me. He just kept saying that I should do English movies. He wanted me to be an accountant. I love making my own money and spending my money. There is always this pride you feel when spending money that you made yourself. I was very good in mathematics when I was in school. I was very brilliant. He thought that because I was excellent in mathematics, I would be a very good accountant. I have an OND in financial studies. I was supposed to go for my HND but I decided to go for direct entry. I wanted to do what I had a pa ssion for. There is this fulfillment that one gets doing what makes one happy. I don’t know. I cannot say the amount I can spend on an item. I love fashion. One thing about fashion is that when you see something you like, if you don’t buy it, you’ll not have peace of mind till you get it, no matter the cost. That is the kind of person I am, and that is why I cannot say how much I can spend on an item. Most times when I see things I like and I
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 21:44:13 +0000
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