From Choir girl to acting

IWhen did you first realise that you'd be an actress?
Quite early on. When I was in school, I joined a drama class at the age of Nine. At the age of 12, I joined the choregraphers group, and now I am in the choir seat of the House of Prayer Ministries.

Were you shaped by your experiences in these groups?
Being in one of these groups will obviously shape anybody, because you come up against one of the greatest fears - inferiority complex. You become someone else. I've always said acting is like the African tribal rituals where they give you a spear when you're a youngman and you go out and kill your lion to prove that you've gone from boyhood to manhood.

So this gives you extra courage?
Yes, courage not to care about what other people think about what I do. Otherwise, I'd never have become an actress in the first place.
Early on, you worked with the famous Sadiq Daba (Cock Crow At Dawn), how do you feel working with him?
It was extraordinary, because I grew up to hear, learn about him. My parents told me mostly about him and the soap Cock Crow At Dawn, where he was a certain Bitrus. But now I've grown to act alongside this genius. In What Goes Around a soap opera, directed by Tunji Bamishigbin, Sadiq was my father; and it looked real to me that, this man, whom I've heard of all my teen age years is now the person I am acting alongside. He has this natural confidence of a father even in real life. I like his sense of humour.

How did you get into the cast of this soap?
I'd love movies for quite a long time. The first actors I saw were stage actors at the bus-stops, not movie actors. So one day, I strolled down to a location where they were shooting, I think I was there for nearly a week or so, and on this particular day, a cast member was absent and somebody was needed to replace her. I was auditioned alongside others but I was picked for the role maybe the quality I had gave me the role.

Do you have a role model that stimulated you?
Yeah... Omotola Ekeinde. She never ever did any acting. She did behaviour, which is what film acting is - it's behaviour and reaction.

What experiences did your role in What Goes Around give you?
I acted as Sadiq Daba's daughter (Kahid). I really enjoyed it because it's more like a home, where you get those emotional parts; when my father (Sadiq) had a problem that he lost some of his personal belongings, it was touching. Basically, a man doesn't cry. I learnt that. A man would rather swallow his own Adam's apple than cry. And Sadiq as my father tried to convey that; the audience did the crying for us.

What other soaps have you appeared in?
I'm in Super Story by Wale Adenuga and recently, a new one been directed by Emeka Ike.

Have you ever taken any of your characters home?
No, I always leave them at the door.

How do you rate your producer, Tunji Bamishgbin?
He is a very hard working man, very encouraging and very friendly to everyone. I only think that when you get older, you become a movie actor again instead of a movie star, and you get much more interesting roles. That is why he is very strict on set, he doesn't joke with his production but he is very understanding.

Are you going to carry on working until........
I thnk I'll carry on for lots of years, say, until I'm 75 years old. What happens in this business is they don't fire you - the scripts just stop coming. But I'm all right now because a script has just landed in my hands. But I hope to get into more serious roles. I'd love the challenges of serious roles, other than the soaps.