Acting is not a do or die affair for me - Queen Nwokoye
The innocent girl in movies but the sexy looking girl in person, Queen Nwokoye is an actress who made her entry into the movie world... some years ago with her first movie titled 'Nna men' and ever since she has done several movies. Today, this graduate of Anthropology is going places in the career of her choice. In this interview with http://nollywoodgists.com on Sunday, she tells her story to Funmi Salome Johnson on her career, her fans and her experience in Ghana where she went to shoot a movie. Excerpts:
Unlike many Nigerian actresses, pretty Queen Nwokoye was quite favoured to have her kind of parents who trusted her good sense of judgement enough to have allowed her go into the acting profession when she did. Recalling how her parents reacted to her choice of career when she started out as an actress, she said with a spark of light in her eyes, “Funny enough, when I told them, they did not object at all.
The only thing my mom said was that I believe I have trained you well and I believe I have also impacted good values in you and knowing what is good and bad, go out there and make us proud. And I always remember that because they trust me, they know me well and they know that I can hold my own anywhere. They watch my movies and that is the reason I cannot go out and mess up in any movie because I know that they watch me and they also give out to their friends to watch.”
For this pretty Ibo born actress, acting nude is out of it because she says that even if she is offered the whole world, she can never play nude. “Apart from the fact that nudity is not part of our culture, I can never play nude because we have viable audience. The Nigerian audience is not so mature for that. For instance, they will watch blue movies and see nothing wrong with it but once they see a Nigerian girl with just a shifted slit, they will start shouting that the person is spoilt. But meanwhile, they do worse things than that. So, I will not for any amount want to do a thing like that because they are the ones that will say, you people don't do it well. You want to kiss, you close your mouth, when you people are trying to make love, you cover up with blanket. You just try and do it. They want it. Our audience is not good enough for such things.”
Many are actresses you would ask what there private life is like, their response is usually, 'I don't have a boyfriend or I don't want to talk about it.' But for sultry and pretty actress Queen Nwokoye, she confessed to the Nigerian Compass that she has a boyfriend whom she believes in and can proudly describe as a wonderful person, although he is a publicity shy person but more than wonderful. She said, “I have boyfriend who is okay. Although he is a publicity shy person, I cannot hide the fact that he is a nice person.”
But going deeper into what rang through her head the first time she was made love to, she bursts out in laughter. A sarcastic one though. This is because at the end of that laughter, she responded with her eyes suddenly going thin, “I don't like talking about it because it was not a good experience. It is a no go area to me. I don't like talking about it at all.”
And when is the wedding bells going to ring for Queen? She simply replies, “Wedding bells will come when it will come. I don't know how soon anybody should be expecting anything but when it comes, it will come. I don't want to predict anything, I just want to allow nature to take its course. If it comes, fine. After all, it is not every relationship that leads into marriage.”
If you describe this Ibo born actress as a colorful person, then you are not far from the truth about her at all because she plays with colours a great deal. She said, “I love colors. I love bright colours because I have a chocolate colour skin so I am always very careful when choosing my colours. There are some colours that you will wear and it will make your skin appear dirty because it will not make your skin glow, it dulls it. So I go for pink, purple, blue and I love white a lot because it makes one look smart and innocent.”
About her inner wears, she said, “I love crazy under wears when it comes to colours. I love the fact that when you undress when you are alone, you like what you wear inside. It makes me happy.”
For a ravishing beauty like Queen, male admires will always come her way. How does she handle them? She responded, “We are used to it and I have a way of handling them. One thing is that you just don't smash their ego unless you have to. You know men generally like it when you caress their ego so that is what I do basically. Besides that, they are fans and no matter how stubborn they are, I have to respect them unless they now go out of bounds, then you just have to stamp your feet, even if it means losing the fan. But funny enough the kind of fans I have been having have been so good to me. They always see me as a very innocent person and that is the way they relate to me. Most of the times, I don't have fans treating me shabbily or trying to make me feel bad because I am an actress, most of them treat me with respect and I enjoy it. Few ones actually go out of bounds. There is no way you will not get such ones. But generally, my fans treat me with respect.”
Talking about her experience in Ghana where she went on a location, she said, “Everything about Ghana was nice except their food. The food was not okay at all. I got back looking very lean.” But can Ghollywood be compared with Nollywood? She said, “Not at all. The gap is too wide. They will measure up someday. But for now, the gap is too wide.”