‘Don’t judge me by my outward looks,’ she seems to say. Beautiful, talented, nice and naturally endowed are some of the words that best describe her. Having put 15 years of her life into an industry that has made her a household name over the years, Anambra born actress and mother of two, Jennifer Eliogu in this no-holds-barred interview with CHIBUEZE OKEREKE bares her mind on some issues that have surrounded her in recent times. She lets us in on her career, family and her latest project….

For quite some time now, you have been on the move, travelling from one place to the other, what have you been up to?

First, I must say, Happy New Year to you and the News Star family and to my fans out there. We asked God for a prosperous and fulfilled
New Year, 2011. And it’s been good so far. I’ve been up to a whole lot really; but, as you know, I am not the type that sings about it until I am sure that I am ready. But what I can tell you is that whatever it is that I am up to is good news.

Besides acting, I know you do compere jobs. Was it a part of you from the start or is it something you picked up?

I think somewhere along the line it just came. It wasn’t a part of the plan, just like acting wasn’t my original plan. I set out to be a singer, but for some reason, I found myself acting, and thank God, 14 years later, it has been good. In another month or two, it will be fifteen years. I was not serious or committed when I started doing MC work, it was more like a joke. It began at a friend’s wedding. The programme was not going according to plan and it was chaos everywhere. I just picked up the mic and started talking. Everybody was so impressed with the way I handled the whole thing. At another wedding, the live band wasn’t doing too well so I called the guy, gave him some tips and we started singing some popular songs just like that. It wasn’t pre-planned, but it went well. It is still working well for me.

So what is happening to your singing skills?

(Laughs) I sing for fun. Professionally, I haven’t really done anything, but I am still singing and will always do. I love to sing. I do, not just karaoke, I also do live performances. All these I do for fun. The truth is, everything that I have set out to do concerning entertainment, I have done. As far as I am concerned, I am living my dreams. It is not a competition. I am not going to sing because every other person is singing. I’m going to sing to live my dream. I produced a movie not because others are doing so, but because I saw the need to positively contribute to the growth of the industry. At a time I realised that it wasn’t enough to just criticise what others were doing. I tasked myself to make an input. And so, I wrote my story, back in 2006. I had just had my daughter in Switzerland; I wasn’t working so it afforded me the time to really write. I did not write in a hurry, I wrote at leisure.

What is the story all about?

It’s a family story. I think it’s about time we brought back those stories that don’t just entertain but also educate. I tried in my little way to bring a little bit of education for the young girl child. It stars Kenneth Okonkwo playing the male lead, and myself. We also have Aunt Ebele Okaro, Thelma Okoduwa, Dorothy Njemanze and a whole lot of others. In fact, I featured a friend of mine, Abibat Lasisi, who was acting for the first time and she did really well. It’s a beautiful story that you and your entire family with your children can watch together. You don’t have to tell your child to close her eyes. The rate of nudity in our movie these days is appalling. So, this movie is something that I am proud of. One of the basic reasons for writing the story is that it is my own way of trying to sanitise the industry of nudity. We all go crazy sometimes; we all flaunt it. I do, I am sure you know (laughs). But for the movie, there is sanity. This is something that will last forever. In Nigeria, a child could walk into a video club and request for any kind of movie, and there is no restrictions on age. I think it’s high time we brought back some of those moralistic films back on the shelves.

What could have prompted you to say that you have no rival in the industry?

A couple of times reporters would ask who I see as a rival in the industry, who I see as my biggest challenge. Truthfully, I neither see anyone as a challenge, nor do I see anyone as a rival. I am me. If it is my job, then it will come to me; and if it is not, it will go to whomever it is destined for. Like I said, it is not a competition. I appreciate a whole lot of my colleagues, but I know where to draw the line. For me, I don’t see anybody as a rival. I am not particular about playing lead roles. Whatever character you give to me, I give it back to you to the best of my ability. I don’t try to be like anyone else. I am just me. There is really no basis for competition.

Have you had a situation where your fans mistook you for one of your characters?

(Laughs) Well yes, a couple of times. Recently, I received an award in the US in North Carolina, myself and Mama Gee. One day we went out shopping and one Black American lady walked up to me and she was like, “O my God, that was good the way you stood up to those in-laws of yours. They wanted to take everything away but you didn’t let them.” Imagine, an American lady! I almost didn’t believe it. Apparently, she had seen one of my films called Plane Crash. In it, I had a little row with my in-laws. But while she was talking, I told her that it was just a movie, and she said, “Yes I know, I’m just so glad to see you in person.” At another time, I was at the market and someone just hit me from behind and said, “Why you wan kill Genevieve, wetin she do you?” I laughed while I told her that it was just a movie. So it happens. Some people tend not to be able to differentiate between an actress as herself and the character she plays in the movie. The same way some people just assume that you are the character you play in the movie. If you play the role of a witch or a prostitute, then you must be it to them. I don’t know how else to make them understand that it’s just make-believe.

You once played the role of a widow in a movie and you rejected the same situation happening to you in real life. Don’t you think it’s high time you did away with characters that don’t agree with your spirit?

In most cases I don’t have problems with such scripts, though I am very particular about the scripts I choose. I have been passionate about every film I have made in the last fourteen years. As for that character of a widow, sometimes people don’t know that we just don’t act because we want to entertain; most of the movies are true-life stories, and their aim is to educate people on traditions and norms that should have been abolished a long time ago. So I was happy to play that role. And for every role I play, I pray about, no matter how positive it is. If it is a positive one I claim what it offers, and if it is a negative one, I reject what it portends, big time (laughs). It doesn’t bother me. Once a producer gave me a script; it was a movie about the marine world. I was going to play the role of one of the alien spirits. I wasn’t comfortable with it because I had shot something like that before. That was my second movie in the industry. It was titled Bora. After that time, I started having nightmares about the water world- snakes, pythons, sea dragons and all that. I didn’t like it; I had to go for deliverance. So now, I am very careful. But if I find a script that is good enough, I will take it as a challenge and pray about it because, I know that whatever I stand against, my father in heaven stands against it. But if the character is not relevant in the story, I turn it down.

Can you turn down a mouth-watering script that must be signed on the same day that you had promised your child to attend his open day at school?

That is a very tricky question. I have to be honest with you, the reason we are working so hard is to give our children the best of education, exposure, comfort, if not luxury. So, I know that I need the deal to be able to maintain that lifestyle. I also know that it will mean a lot to my child if I come for that day at her school. I have a five-year-old daughter who is very intelligent and very sensitive. There are times she criticises my dressing. But to be very candid, I really can’t give you a direct answer to that right now. I can’t say to you that I love my child so much that I will forget about the deal or that I will take the deal and forget about my child. This is a very tricky question. I will pray for God to give me the wisdom to be able to achieve both.

A story has it that when there was heated crisis, it increased your asthmatic condition. How true is that?

I reject it in Jesus name! Asthma? I have never read that. Let me ask you something; do people at any point not stop to think that we are human beings like them? I mean, we are normal people, we breathe air like them, and we defecate and do other things like human beings. We have families who get upset when certain things are written about us. They write things that make you want to regret going into the industry. Why would you wish somebody asthma, when she doesn’t have it? For the records, I don’t have asthma. I have never had it and I never will. I know that in most cases people who have it might not be sure that they have it, but I don’t. I send it back to the sender.

Did the strictness of your parents shape you into what you are today?

Yes, it has shaped me in the sense that with my popularity, and with lots of friends, you hardly find me hanging around with friends as many they are. Most of my friends call me ‘mother superior,’ and that is not because I am better. I might appear crazy on the outside but I am not a total introvert and I am also not an extrovert completely; I swing in between. But in my heart, I am more intro than extro. My parents training made me conscious of the kind of association I keep. Every time I pray, I ask God that every friend that won’t add value to my life, every negative friend, should be separated from, both spiritually and physically. I am not a perfect person, but if you don’t live my kind of life, we can’t be friends. There’s got to be something that we have in common. If you are more righteous than I am, if you crazier than I am, whatever it is, I must learn from you; there’s got to be something that will be of value to me.

So what was growing up like?

Growing up was fun. Everything we needed we had. We had all the space, and all the toys to play with; it helped us grow up as a bunch of broom. My siblings and I are very close because we were each other’s playmates. We were not used to going out to play. I have a very wonderful family. So whatever we do, we did amongst one another. Even now at our ages, we can’t do anything without one another. That is why I said that I have a very wonderful family, and I thank God for that. We keep our quarrel amongst us. We fight and settle it amongst us. There has never been a time when we call somebody to come and settle a rift between us. As a young girl growing up, you get curious, you want to know what it is your father is trying to protect you from out there. Then, eventually, you find young teenage girls getting pregnant, young boys joining gangs, and all what not. This happens when you are overly protective of your child. So there is both an advantage and a disadvantage to it; depending on how you look at it.

What was your husband’s response to the commotion one of your dresses caused on facebook?

I didn’t really feel anything then; we all have our minutes of madness. We are human. Once in a while you want to explore. I am not a very conservative person when it comes to dressing. My husband and I saw that dress and he felt it was good. We both liked it and we went for it. It didn’t bother me that people felt that I exposed my body. If my family is comfortable with it and my husband is not complaining, and my children love it, even as young as they are, I don’t see why it should be anybody’s headache. That is the truth. I know that because I am a role model, it’s in my place to be able to tell people what is good or bad. But the dress in question was not worn to a wrong occasion. It’s not like I wore it to church. It’s showbiz for heaven sake! There was no response from my husband on the matter. We bought it together. I wore it for him to see before I eventually wore it to the occasion. If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t have paid for it.

How far can you go as regards nudity in movies?

Flaunting is an entirely different thing from nudity. Flaunting I will forever do; nudity, forget it (laughs) – never! With flaunting you are free to tease with those areas that you know you are endowed. If you have fine legs, once in a while, you want to show off. If you’ve got a good face, you can’t hide it even without make-up. Same also if you have a good skin, you don’t need anyone to tell you that. I can’t be wearing long sleeve wears all the time when I know that I have got a good skin. A little bit of cleavage every now and then is allowed (laughs).

Don’t you think all this attracts men to you despite your status?

Even when you wear dresses that cover you from head to toe, men will still come. They have eyes like eagle. When they see a good woman, they know from miles away, even when she wears a hijab. There are certain things you can’t hide. Men would always be men and see them. And if you are woman and you don’t have admirers, you don’t have men make passes at you, then there is something wrong with you. For people to look at you and thank God is part of what makes you a woman. But then, it’s left for you to draw the line. I don’t have a problem with men admiring me, but I try not to put myself in a position where I will be molested or harassed.

But have you had issues with your in-laws complaining about your style of dressing?

No, I don’t, because I am hardly immodestly dressed in real life. I don’t harass people with my dressing, unless you begin to have ideas in your own head. I don’t dress provocatively. I don’t walk the street wearing dresses with very low cleavages. I wear it to occasions like awards, beauty pageants; I mean common places. It’s showbiz. But it’s not like I wake up every morning walking the street half nude. They know me and my dress sense, and they know that he (my husband) doesn’t complain about it. I will never wear anything that will embarrass them. I will never wear anything that will make them ask some questions. Some families complain even when you dress modestly, so just be yourself. I know that I am a good person. I know that I have a good heart. I am a very free-spirited person.

What will you consider your greatest fear?

My greatest fear is growing too fat; fat to the extent that I cannot fit into my clothes. I have a tendency to blow up if I don’t control it. My mum is like a size 18/20. I used to be afraid of a whole lot of things but the more spiritually strengthened I became, I understood that your greatest failure is fear. You cannot be afraid of something you have no control over. Just do the best you can and allow destiny play out naturally. I try not to make fear a part of my vocabulary.