A nursing dream, a teaching career, but an acting success

Lying on a couch in her hotel room, at Serena Hotel; Patience Ozokwor a celebrated Nigerian actress is visibly a down to earth person. “I was only resting but come in and have a seat,” she invites us in a friendly voice, offering me and the other journalist I had gone with, the couch as she headed for the chair. She wears no makeup and her hair, which is plaited in afro-kinky braids reveals bits of grey.

Clad in a sweater even though it is a relatively hot day, it is clear she is used to hotter weathers. No wonder in Nigerian movies we see them sleep without covering themselves.

Her accent, when she speaks, is a cut between Nigerian and American, and her voice is a little deep. She speaks somewhat fast, and with intense passion whenever she refers to cultural or religious issues.

Patience Ozokwor is the movie star every Nigerian movie fan loves to hate but just cannot. She is the woman whose roles are most likely to be of the bad step mother, awful wife or terrible co-wife, always resorting to witchcraft. “You can’t believe that I also cry during some shoots for some of these movies and the director has to stop and give me a minute,” confesses Ozokwor, of the effect her roles also have on her. She adds, “I love children and whatever hurts them hurts me too. But I realise that I have to portray these roles well so people can understand the depth of what they are doing.”

Mama G, as she is fondly known among her fans, courtesy of one of her most popular characters in the 2006 Nigerian movie, The return of Mama G, about a woman who lives her life to the full, says: “Many women are guilty of the evils I portray in these characters. Since it has fallen on me to be the one to expose it, I will expose it to the best of my knowledge.”

FMy frst drama role ever was acting Hamlet
“I wanted to be a nurse when I was a little girl. As an adult, I realised I could not stand bandaging wounds and cleaning blood, so I switched to teaching,” Ozokwor says of her change in heart.

Already married, she attended teachers training college in Afikpo from where she proceeded to IMT Enugu and studied fine and applied arts, specialising in graphics.

At the teacher training school, she says literature groups used to dramatise different plays. Her group presented William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and she was given the role of Hamlet. “Our acting became so popular that Hamlet became my name for a while even off stage,” she recounts.

She taught for three years and then ventured into broadcasting at Radio Nigeria as a radio announcer in 1982. She did this until she was retrenched in 1985 and went on to venture into business. “I didn’t want to go back to teaching but business failed, so, I had to go back to teaching.”

During the same time she was rebounding as a teacher, she was appointed deputy to the mayor’s wife.Ozokwor also doubled as the decorator for the room where government delegates were laid for viewing when they passed on. It was her duty to ensure the rooms were decorated with flowers and coffins well presented, in a way that was respectful of the dead.

She did everything she could to make money, especially because she needed it to cater for her husband who was suffering from cancer. When she starts talking about how her husband suffered from cancer for 15 years, she almost breaks down. “His medication was very expensive but my in-laws were so supportive,” she says. Unfortunately, he eventually succumbed to the disease and passed on in 2000.

Destined for the big screen
Ozokwor’s first commercial acting gig was in 1997 in a commercial and it earned her 5000 Naira (about Shs78,000). The production team was so pleased with the success she brought to the set that they started to throw her more roles in more commercials. And so it was that her acting career kicked off with advertising clips, which eventually saw her acting in small soap operas too.

Her first big breakthrough in television was a 13-episodes series Women Commission in 1997. “I’m quite shy so at first, I wasn’t sure what to do. Whoever saw me, however, mused about how good I was and wondered where I had been all along. It was encouraging,” she recalls, adding that her success convinced her to leave all else and focus all her energies in the movie industry.

Ozokwor has since mastered the art of acting that she only has to look at her script, get a brief from a production director and she will immediately get into character. “I don’t need to read the whole script to know what to do and I have acquired this without any professional training,” she brags.

She says the beginning was quite difficult as they did not a lot of equipment and the technology was limited. “Then, we could shoot a movie in less than one week due to limited equipment but we now shoot in over a month to produce quality work,” she recalls, adding: “The shooting season can be quite tiresome. There are times we do shoots from morning to midnight without resting.”

Away from the movies
Other than acting, Ozokwor runs a fast food business called Wendy’s Café, and owns a Plaza called Wendy’s Place. Of course, she hired someone to run the businesses because she hardly has time to run them. Having become popular, Ozokwor says management of stardom is worse than pursuing the career itself because you cannot get angry anyhow.

“You are forced to wear a permanent smile as people expect you to embrace them whenever you meet them. They forget that you are also a human being with a range of other emotions too,” she says.

For what she has earned from the film industry, she agrees that this is only a small price to pay.

By the time of her husband’s death in 2000, Ozokowor had gained prominence in the movie industry. “My husband would sit in the living room and we watch the movies together and laugh.”

These movies gave them joy, financial leverage, and for Ozokwor, fame, who says she has to date acted in over 250 Nigerian movies.
Clearly, not the end of the road for her.

Reality vs the movies

Do Nigerians have small families like in the movies?
No, we have large families with many children. The movies only do that to minimise the cast fees as the more people you have on set, the more money you spend in paying them.

What is the Nigerian culture on dressing?
Traditionally, a woman’s attire should tell you about a woman’s age group and marital status. The marrieds, for instance, wear two-wrappers for skirts; a long one and a short one over it. There are also dresses for young girls, young marrieds and older women. Of course, there are those women who wear short clothes regardless of age or status.

The stereotype that Nigerians are thieves?
I have never heard that and we are not thieves. Nigerians cannot stand thieves. In fact, in the olden days, the punishment for stealing yam was a death penalty and there was a place designated for killing such people.

What is with Nigerian women and makeup?
Not all Nigerian women wear make-up. What we see in the movies is western culture influence eating into our culture. I also only wear makeup on duty.

The dramatic expresssions?
Yes, Nigerian women are generally dramatic with different expressions depending on the tribe one comes from.

Does the Naira attract a Nigerian woman?
In most cases, yes, and this has become the reason some marriages are breaking down. Some couples start from scratch, but when they make money, they abandon their wives for younger women.

Is there witchcraft in Nigeria?
Yes, we have lots of witches in almost all tribes of Nigeria.

At a glance

• She was born on March 25, 1958 in Ngwo, Enugu state, in a polygamous family of 13, to the late Chief Vincent Ugwoh and Felicia Uzoamaka. Her parents were both petty traders, but they made enough to take care of all their children. At six, she was adopted by a wealthier uncle, as is tradition in Nigeria, who took her to Lagos and she attended Abimbola Gibson Memorial School, Lagos. She recalls being pampered by this uncle.
• She got married at 20, but lost her husband to cancer in 2000. She has eight children, but four of them are adopted.
• She enrolled for a Mass Communication course but never completed it.
• She started the acting profession in 1997 and has acted in 250 movies.
• She is a self-confessed born again Christian, punctuating most of her speak with Bible verses, especially to emphasise the relevance of some traditions.