Here is the concluding part of the interview of Joke Silva that appeared on our Celebrity page last week.

Do you think we will get there soon enough?

IT will take time and there are people who are working like that already. That’s why I commend the Nigerian Films and Video Censor Board.

How would you describe J. Taylor’s visit to the Project?

He was very impressed with what we were doing on Project Fame. He was impressed with the quality of artistic transact we had, and the standard of the studio. He told the contestants that they were lucky to have that start because not everybody had that kind of start. We try to get them to underostand that performance requires a high level of commitment and energy. It requires skills, whether in singing or movement. They saw this 55 years old man move the way they could not. One boy said that he finally understood what we had been trying to teach them.

If Taylor had not come, what do you think would have happened?

It would have taken us a bit longer to get there than we did, even though we would have eventually got there. We got there a day after he came.

What do you expect from the eventual winner in another one to five years?

What I hope they would do is something we have been talking about, that is continuous training.They haven’t learned enough, but then, they are getting a fantastic jump- start having met producers who can help them in their careers. Whoever wins will have enough money to go into a studio and do stuff. He or she can even get into other things.

If you didn’t care,how did the change then come?

The kind of job that I do, also, with the younger generations of colleagues that I have who are into high fashion,! had to step it up as I didn’t want to look like their grandmother.

Why are you keeping your family away from the spotlight?

Because I want them to get there when they are ready.! don’t want them to grow up in the spotlight, it is not a very nice place to be when you can’t handle it.

Your husband, Olu Jacobs, has never stopped talking about how stunned he was when he first set eyes on you. How did
you take it when he said he was going to marry you just like that?

I think he was just a very determined person. I never knew that such a thing could happen, meeting someone for the first time and saying that you have found the person; especially when you are not searching. I wasn’t searching at the time, I was about 20 and21 years then and a relationship was the last thing on my mind. I was just at the beginning of my career and enjoying it, meeting people and generally enjoying my youth. I was more career-focused. So, for .someone to have come just like that, I was amused and I took it as a funny line.

What attracted you to him?

I don’t know, he said it was just some thing I said to him, while I don’t think I said anything. That was a day I was in a room to call the then artistic director of the national theatre to come and watch us rehearse for our first ever public performance, which Olu had come for; but they were having a meeting and we had started before the director came, so we decided to call him. In fact, I had no idea that he was the Olu Jacobs that everybody had been talking about at the time. I got thereto can the director and I said: “We are ready for you Mister.” and this guy goes; “wow! This is the woman I’m going to marry”. It was a funny line, which I also took to be a lie, but five years later, we were married.

What thought came to your mind when he said you were the woman he would marry?

I just thought it to be something funny and wondered if that was the best he could come up with.

You two have appeared in few movies but you have never kissed. What do you think?

The roles have never demanded that. If the roles do, we would. But they have never.

And if the role demands that you kiss someone else?

Yes, it happened in Golden Gate, but it did not get a wide release then. I kissed Yomi Layinka, he was my love interest in the film. That was about 1993, 94, 96.