If there was ever a rising star in the Nigerian movie industry, that would be actress, Calista Okoronkwo. Not only is she enthusiastic about acting, she knew exactly what she was getting into when she dumped her B.Sc degree certificate in economics she obtained from the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) in 2010 for acting. And what roles she has been getting since she decided in 2010 never to look back in her acting career which goes back further than that year.
She had barely finished working on the set of the movie, Home Apart, where TheNiche interviewed her last week than she moved to another set also in Lagos. Incidentally, the actress, whose middle name is Chika, plays the character of a certain Chika in the flick produced by Uchenna Mbunabo, a filmmaker versed in discovering stars.
Asked if it was not unsettling to her having the same name as the character she is playing, she replied: “I don’t feel uncomfortable because in other movies where I have to use other names, sometimes when they call me the name of the character, I forget it’s me they’re referring to. But in this case, it is my name; so once I hear it, I know it is me. So it is a bit easy for me to get into the character,” she stated.
Calista, who has played lead in several Nollywood movies, is also not uncomfortable with kissing other actors on set, though she has a boyfriend.
“He met me while I was doing this and liked me because I was doing this,” is her explanation.
Ask her how she really finds acting, whether she really enjoys it or is doing it until a better job comes along, and the response is: “I am an economist and I have a certificate which if I wanted a regular job I could go ahead and do it. Acting is something that I really love to do. I know it is almost a cliche; everybody keeps saying that.”
The sparkle in her eyes and the high pitch her voice attains when she responds is enough to attest to her sincerity. Calista really loves acting and is willing to go very far. The trained economist who got her first acting job in 2005, which she emphasised was not ‘waka pass’, before going to school to UNN in 2006, hopes to be famous in no distant time.
“Hopefully, in three years from now, I would like to be a household name,” she said.
With role models like Angelina Jolie, Idris Elba and all the actors and actresses in Nigeria that are way above her, she could never go wrong in her chosen career.
“There is always something to learn from them, since they have been in the game before me. Each chance I have with them, I learn one or two things. It is almost difficult to pick a particular person,” she explained.
One only needs to see her in films like Barrister Anita, Born Again Sisters, Kachi Goes to School and a host of the other over 50 films she has appeared in to believe what she has to say. What is more, she is desirous of pursuing a stage drama career professionally.
“I hope to do that someday because I know there are several disparities acting in front of the camera on set and then acting on stage. I know the voice clarity and everything is different; so I would like to feel what it is like to be on stage,” said the actress who has been on movie sets in Lagos, Enugu and Yenagoa.
For an actress whose major job was College Girls in 2010, she has come a long way and there is no doubt that her rise has just started.
