Thursday, 18 December 2014

I Chased Regina Askia For 3 Months – Ralph Nwadike


 Nollywood and TV drama veteran, Ralph Nwadike has disclosed how he labored for three months to get former beauty queen, Regina Askia to become an actress.

 Nwadike, who was speaking at a British Council/GenVoices event in Lagos on Monday 15th December 2014, said: Regina was a beauty queen and I was determined to make her a screen star. I went to her house everyday for three months and her housegirl said the same thing to me: “Aunty, e no dey.”  But I didn’t give up; I went again the next day.”

According to the respected producer who says he has written over a thousand scripts, on the day decided that the chase was over if he wasn’t let into Regina Askia’s house, the house maid delivered a different message: “Aunty say make you come.” On meeting the beauty queen finally, she vehemently refused to even consider acting, insisting that she couldn’t do it. Upon further prodding she finally accepted to partake in an audition, which turned out to be a disaster.

“Regina couldn’t read her script. She was shaking. To make matters worse, the other actors laughed at her. So she stormed out of the audition venue and said to me: “Thank you very much Ralph, you have succeeded in making me embarrass myself in public.” But we held her back and asked her to stand in front of her mirror at home and practise, which she did. The rest, as they say, is history.”
Regina Askia went on to become one of the stars of Fortunes, produced by the team of Ralph Nwadike, Charles Owoyemi and Tunji Bamishigbin and later, Mega Fortunes. Ramsey Noah, Pat Attah and Liz Benson are some of Nollywood’s stars that were discovered by Ralph Nwadike.

No comments:

Post a Comment