I started acting when I was 8-years-old – Genevieve Nnaji

Nigeria’s Genevieve Nnajin says her career as a movie actress started when she was a child.

According to Nnaji, she started performing in front of the camera when she was 8-years- old with a modeling agency in Nigeria.

Speaking to Pedro Pinto on CNN’s African Voices on March 27, 2011, Genevieve said even though she was a shy kid then, she felt alive in front of the camera and proved herself as an actress.

“I was 8-years-old and was a model when I was in front of a camera to shoot my first movie”, Nnaji, who was in London to attend her latest film premiere titled “The Mirror Boy”, told CNN.

According to Nnaji, she never realized that acting in a movie would be her career even though she wanted to do that on temporarily bases and go back to school and study law as her full-time career.

“I didn’t realize that I will one day be a movie actress because I wanted to be a lawyer but somehow I was dragged and sunk into it deeper and deeper even though acting was not attractive to me”, she said.

This was because the culture in Nigeria then never favoured those who were in acting and even “my parents didn’t necessarily agree to my career”, Nnaji said.

Genevieve wants to take further challenges in the movie industry because according to her; she has not reached her career peak necessarily since she wants other opportunities to express herself more.

She said Nollywood, name for the Nigerian film industry, came out of theatrical drama and that was why most Nigerian movies are more dramatic which makes it different from Hollywood and Bollywood.

To Nnaji, film premiering, is an important thing in the movie industry since it offers the opportunity for movie actors and actresses to know how the general public accepts the movie and their reactions towards a particular movie.

She added: “It is an opportunity to meet my fans and interact with them.”

She advised upcoming actresses to know what they want before entering into the industry and they should not do so for fame.

By Ekow Quandzie