ACTOR INTERVIEW: “As an actor you must be a student of your craft.” Valerie Okeke
I’m Valerie Okeke, I am 23 years old. My first acting gig was in a stage play back in college. After that, I knew that was what I would want to do for the rest of my life on seeing how the audience loved my performance.
Did you study acting?
After college, I decided I wanted to make acting my career so I went to the Royal Arts Academy Emem Isong). I studied acting and screenwriting. My coaches were Sunkanmi Adebayo (Acting), Anthony Kehinde Joseph (Writing and Acting). It’s always good to be a student of your art.
What acting technique do you use?
I love the Stanislavski system because I love to draw upon real feelings and experiences and also Sandy Meisner technique because I also like to focus on the other actor and believe that we are the only ones that matter at the time.
What wrong impressions do actors hold about acting
I think people just think acting is all about taking a role and acting out a character. Acting is not Acting, it’s Being a character. We don’t want to see the Actor, we want to see the character.
How do you keep fit as an actor
I do regular workouts, acting exercises (zip,zap,zop, repetition, alphabet scene etc). They help me with concentration. I also do voice exercises.
When you’re offered a role, what do you do next
When offered a role,I read the script thoroughly to understand the story and analyze the character. Firstly, you have to love your character. There’s no way you can make a character believable if you judge it rather than loving it. Find the backstory of your character. I go through the script between every take just to make sure I’m all good.
What do you want most from a director
I want a director to be creative and he must also be a good leader. I would really love to work with Cate Blanchet, Leo DiCaprio, Patience Ozokwor and Mercy Johnson. I mean, who wouldn’t want to work with such actors. They put the act in acting. I’ve learnt a lot from watching them.
What advice would you give actors
I as Valerie Okeke advice actors to be a student of your art. There’s nothing like enough learning. You should learn everyday, every minute from everybody. It helps to build a great actor. I’ll sign up for every opportunity to learn something new.
Write about your career
>My career started in the university after I joined a religious drama group. I took part in many stage dramas. We also did two stage plays; The Brink and The Gods are not to blame, in which I played a maiden and a villager respectively. While in Royal Arts Academy I took part in a production “Knocking on heaven’s door” in where I played the part of a choir.
