How bad pressmen affected my relationships - Nollywood Diva Ronke Odusanya.

Popular Yoruba actress, Ronke Odusanya, just returned from South Africa, where she spent two months in a new TV series titled ‘Closet’. In this interview with Inner room correspondence Linda Bankole, she speaks on the challenge of speaking English all through the period of shooting. 
Excerpts:

Do you sometimes feel you are not celebrated enough as a celebrity?

To an extent, my opinion about that is it is not everybody that is celebrated that ends well, or does what is to be done. Some people pay to be celebrated, while some deserve to be celebrated and some are still looking to be celebrated. So, I don’t believe that everybody being celebrated deserves to be celebrated.

You just returned from South Africa where you featured in a TV series. Tell us about it?

It was an English TV drama series. A company in Antony called Total Recall, contacted me on the job and we discussed the project. He forwarded the script to me, which is a large one. I was only able to flip through, I won’t lie to you. He narrated the story and I liked the concept.  I played the lead character, Victoria Macaulay, the wife of the deceased Steven Macaulay.

The story revolved around my character, a 48 year old woman, who had a daughter in her mid-20s, and a step-son in her mid-30s. It was very challenging and one of its kinds for me. I hadn’t done something like that before. I have featured in some home videos in the past.

What was the transformation like for you, being your first major English movie?

First thing first, I want to address the fact that most people believe that actors who feature in 
Yoruba movies, can’t speak fluent English.

Naturally when people have an opinion about you and you are trying to pass a message across to them through a medium, you will want to put in your best. If you are one who is not confident about yourself, you will probably do what you are not supposed to do; like forming your phonetics or accent.

Permit me to say, that acting in English movies is not what I do all the time, so if I am trying to do it, which I am not used to doing on set all the time; I only do it once in a while, probably in Yoruba movies and putting just a bit of English. Speaking English all through and shooting close to 1000 scenes, and having to appear in over 800 scenes, you can imagine how large the project was.

Starting work at 8 in the morning and taking a break at 8 at night, it was hectic. We had just like 15 minutes break in between to have breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The first two-three days was not easy, I won’t lie to you, because my director was one who likes English that you have to go and look up in the dictionary. He is very sound and he is called TJ Sound. So if you are working with him, you have to sit on you bum, I mean your proper bum. It took me days to adjust on set because I spoke English all through. There wasn’t even a Yoruba mix at all.

Like I said earlier, for someone who is trying to cross from Yoruba, sometimes when you act in those movies, there are ways you want to gesticulate, but when you remember it is English and a different thing, I had to adjust. The director is one who expects you to do your roles word for word. He is a nice director; strict, but not too strict. You need to be on your toes when taking those scenes.

Did you at any point feel like quitting?

Yes there was this time that I didn’t step out of where we were lodged for like a month and I was so crazy; it was getting to me. And when we go down to shoot and they are like Flakky, action; I would just be staring at them.  And then the director had to call me to ask what was wrong and I told him. So that weekend we were taken round to see the Mount Casino and the following week, we started work back.

What project are you currently into now personally?

I don’t want to let out the cat out of the bag yet but there is a project I am trying to work on for myself, with a couple of people. We are still working on it.

What is the secret behind your trimming down?

I am still working on it. And there is no point competing with anybody because my body structure is different. I just feel I was probably being overweight and I also had a problem with my tummy. But I had to leave myself to allow a little fat, because of the character I played in Closet.

But I have started working on myself again.

Why did you decide to disappear on your birthday?

Naturally, I am a very private person; an introvert to the core. But because of my job, I can’t run away from some functions. But last year, I celebrated with a few of my friends.

But this year, I decided not to. I am a very spiritual person and I go to a spiritual church. So, sometimes when I pray and I receive messages, I keep it low when I am told to keep it low. I think it’s been working for me through the years.

Did you join the ‘white garment’ church after your entry into the movie world?

I was born into the Celestial Church. When I was in the university, I also was attending the C&S church. But my mum and dad are very strong members of Christ Apostolic Church. But I like ‘white garment’, probably because I was born there.

The reason I asked the question was to know if being a member is borne out of the fact that they are believed to see the vision.

That is not the reason. I love white garment church a lot. In CAC too, they see things if they pray for you. But I love the doctrine of the ‘white garment’ church because I am a very spiritual person like I said earlier. And I am also an Alore; they are the ones who go into trance.

That is surprising coming from someone like you?

Yes, that is true. We are not permitted to use anything flashy; like fixing of nails and jewelleries. But I am the only one permitted to use it because of the nature of my job and it must be moderate. And it all still goes back to my days in school. It is my job that is not allowing me a lot of things. But sometimes you see me very natural when I am going to church, without any of these things on.

Being a very private person, how do you handle it when negative stories are written about you?

It has not been easy; especially when people hear things about you and don’t bother to hear your own side before going ahead to do the stories. That can be very painful. It is one part of the media 
I don’t like.

I believe in every lie, there is an atom of truth. I believe it is always right to find out what part is the truth. But now that it is the way it is, I bless God and pray that nothing like that comes my way anymore. As God is still God, I believe there is a way He does something probably to call you back to track or protect you from something.

What in the case where you want to find out the truth and you are being cursed?

There are individual differences; some will be mature about it and some childish. I have an instance where someone called and said it is reported that I was fighting Fathia Williams because of Pasuma. And we were both at a location shooting. I had to call her attention to it and she spoke to the person.

There was another in a paper (newspaper), one time that Flakky Dido was badly beaten by an alhaji in Illorin, and I was lying beside my boyfriend at that time. He was the one who saw the story and showed it to me, and he was like, ‘if I was abroad, I would have believed this story.’ You don’t have to defame somebody’s career all in the name of getting your own job done.

I read Mass Communication in school and I know what it takes. That journalists have to write catchy stories, which is number one in story writing, but doing that, you shouldn’t invade other people’s privacy too in a very bad manner.

There is something we do, how people just say things like those actresses, ‘they like bleaching,’ ‘they like snatching people’s boyfriends.’ Do you know how many girls have snatched my own boyfriend or that I have caught with my boyfriend? How many people do I go to tell?

With all these being said, how have they been affecting your relationship?

Very badly. There was this guy I met then and he just didn’t want to let go the story of a blogger who posted a picture I took with the son of a make-up artiste, who looked like me, with the headline ‘Flikky Dido finally unveils son.’ Meanwhile there had been a story making round then that I had two sons for Pasuma, which also caused a fight between my cousin and another lady at a beach where she claimed she knew me personally, that I had indeed bore Pasuma two kids.

Is that why you have refused to settle down with a man?

Is it the one that I helped and the wife went to the media claiming that I snatched her husband that I want to settle down with? Where was she when I was helping the guy? It was when she saw him using two cars, which she knew not how he came about them that she now came out. Meanwhile she had left the guy when he had nothing almost two years. She said she had left him for me, when people started asking her where she was all this while. When I see the right person I will settle down.