We all know that Monalisa Chinda is among the queen of Nollywood. A lot of people think she is half cast. She is one precious and dazzling acting talent that any good producer who want an actress who acts with boundless enthusiasm would want to have in his show. She does her part very good in movie. Infect she is one of the best actress.
I am not half cast, I am a full Nigerian. My Mum is Igbo and my Dad is from Ikwere. It pains me when people call me half cast. I was born and brought up in Nigeria; Said Monalisa.
The wife of showbiz personality and arrow head of Question Mark entertainment Dejo Richards and the first of six children born to an Ikwere father and an Igbo mum, Monalisa Dejo Richards nee Chinda is one naturally endowed actress, who also studied and learnt the ropes and have today shot up to grade one status on the job.
Widely hailed as the beloved actress of the screen and current rave of the moment; appearing in about 2 of every five English speaking movies that are currently being released and believed to be principled, humble and reserved by those who know her, Mona as she is called for short has in the estimation of some critics proven in so short a time of her incursion into full time acting that she is a world class material and one who has a genuine love for the make believe profession.
According to Monalisa Chinda, becoming an actress was not in her thoughts. Acting wasn’t what I wanted to do. My parents wanted me to become a lawyer and I was so much interested on it. Although I wasn’t sure what I wanted for a career. But later I decided to read theatre arts. And it just happened like that. May be I would say it is divine. I just don’t know now what the motivational force behind it was.
I just got into the University of Port Harcourt and I went for it. Honestly I don’t know what pushed me into studying theatre arts, but I just enrolled and that was it. It has nothing to do with whether I didn’t get the cut off mark or whether there was no space for me in other departments. I mean my parents wanted me to read law. I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I made up my mind to study theatre; said Monalisa Chinda.
I only knew I had the interest as a kid because in school one was part of a couple of early school productions. But true, one never thought one would be so interested as to even want to go to a university to study the course and at the end of the day excel. There was no influence at all and which like you inferred makes my case different. I think it was just divine. I just found myself in it. And I must say that I benefited a lot from the training I got in the university.
It moulded and shaped me for what I am doing now. I was lucky to have been trained by very respectable theatre practitioners particularly those who learnt under the late Ola Rotimi. By the time I came into the certificate course Professor Rotimi had left but then there were other lecturers that were under him that we now learnt under as well. What has helped me today is the drilling we got from those lecturers. They were more concerned about professionalism.
I recall them telling us to try other professions if our studying theatre art was just as a stepping stone to something more financially rewarding. So they really drilled us at that time. I started off from the certificate stage before I now went in for a full degree course.
In everything I am happy to be an actress. You will never know your talent until you give it a try. Like I did, I never knew I am an actress until I entered into acting. Said Monalisa Chinda,.
