Nollywood actress Kehinde Bankole’s career after her involvement in Wale Adenuga’s sitcoms, Super Story and This Life, has been on the rise. In this interview with LANRE ODUKOYA, she speaks about the highpoints of her career, exit from professional runway modelling among sundry issues.
Why did you decide to quit as a show host when it’s possible for you to combine it with acting?
That aspect of me is not laid low yet. I’m just giving priority to what’s more demanding at the moment. Acting is more demanding of my time and energy now.
And I’ve just realised that this is where the opportunity is. You can’t shut down on where the opportunity is. You make the most of the opportunity and if much later, you still want to do other things, you can.
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Most actors claim they’d die acting, do you think there’s going to be a time you’d retire into some other life adventures?
When I say, ‘put acting to rest’, it’s not that I mean there’s a particular year I’m setting that when I get to that time, I’m going to shut down. I’m just saying it would get to a point in my career, that I might I’ve done so much in acting then I’d want to move to something else. It’s not like I’ve set a date but I know in the far future, I’m quite certain I’m doing something about a show; something around a show.
Do you still do modelling actively?
Yes, but it’s in a more advanced way. Like I said earlier, acting is the one taking all the time. But in recent time, what I’ve done about modelling is more like a brand’s spokesperson position unlike before that it was a runway modelling and basic photography modelling. But now, the modelling I do is in the areas on endorsements, brand ambassadorship, brand spokesperson. I’m still doing modelling but it’s on a different level.
Don’t you miss strutting the runway?
No, I don’t miss the runway days. I outgrew the runway much earlier which was one of the reasons I was stronger for acting. While we were younger and we were all starting out in modelling, some people had the opportunity to explore more in runway such that it took them international and they built a stronger career in it. For me, I got to a point where the few opportunities I got in modelling, I had expended them. So, I felt what’s next? So, I left runway modelling long time ago.
I was there. I did the bit that came to me as opportunities and I wanted more but the more came from acting. I wasn’t going to wait any longer. I wanted bigger things and TV presentation, acting took me and from there. But I’m quite sure I’ve expended whatever runway modelling had in stock.
How did your parents take your decision to be a model?
My parents didn’t have an issue with it. I didn’t build a career in runway modelling. I’m not a Naomi Campbell. I just had opportunities in modelling and my parents saw that so long as it kept you actively employed and occupied as a young person, no problem. I was going to school simultaneously and I was acting. It wasn’t a career. I never chose runway modelling as a final career. It was an opportunity while I was growing up.
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What was your fascination with modelling?
Opportunity was my fascination.
How did the opportunities come?
It was Miss Commonwealth (2003) at first and then Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (2003). The two involved walking on the runway. There’s no way you’ll be in a pageant and you’re not walking on the runway and also, as a growing young girl, employment opportunities that were coming were in the line of modelling. For me, I took the opportunities and from there graduated to other bigger opportunities.
Is your twin sister into entertainment also?
She’s an event planner, so she’s more or less into this business. Although, she’s not acting, event planners are into the social scene. She started out acting before I started. She was in Binta and Friends for the entire duration it ran until she stopped. But after then, what she has taken as a career is event planning.
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Did she play any role in your decision to start acting?
Everybody knows that part about me. She was the one that pushed me to go for my first audition. kehinde bankole twins sisterI had done Miss Commonwealth as at that time and Wale Adenuga Productions was auditioning for either Super Story or This Life and she kept saying we were going to go together and we did. And here is the result of that.
How have you been able to stay away from scandals?
This is just me.
There was a time an actress, Bidemi Kosoko, alleged that you snatched her husband.
Do you mean in a film?
It was on Instagram
I don’t have any idea or comments on this. I don’t think it’s true.
[Saturday Telegraph]
