RACHEAL ONIGA HOW I STARTED ACTING AS YORUBA ACTRESS

RACHEAL--I started acting in 1993, after I got seperated from my husband.  I told myself I wasn't going to go into the labour market because, I was a full time housewife before the seperation. For four years we tried to have babies, but they weren't coming and..

the doctor advice that I should take things low. Although, before then, I was working as a programmer and I had a heavy workload in my office; Ascoline Nigeria Limited. It is a Dutch Consultant Company.

I went into movies and my first movie was ‘Onome” and my debut Yoruba movie was “Owo Blow” although a lot of people used to think that it is Boorepo but I actually did Owo Blow and one or two Yoruba jobs before Boorepo.

But it just happened that Boorepo came out and everybody fell in love with the role  that I played in that movie. And again, seeing an English speaking actress feature in Yoruba movie, they really appreciated  it with me.
and has since gone on to star in over 150 movies. Some of the movies, she has featured in include Passion of Mind, Power Of Sin, Restless Mind, Revelation, Tears, The Hair Dresser, African Child, Agony of A Mother, Broken Chord, Broken Vow, Desperate Secret, Market Women, Eberu Adigun, Farayola, Madam Kofo, Tibi Tire Laye,
Q=Being a widow, how are you coping with the loneliness and the pain of single parenthood over the years?

A--I’m recently widowed but for so many years, I have been separated from the man. So, I do not see myself as a widow but as a single parent of almost 18 years.

And the fact that one is a single parent is no excuse for not being hard working. I agree there are lonely moments when the kids are matured and are away from home but as a couple, such times come in their lives. After graduating from school, they start working, get married and leave the house.

And the home will be left for you and your husband if you are together. But for me, I have been like that for close to 18 years.
Q=Do you have any intention of remarrying?

A--  What I just have to say is that no one is  like God. God is Almighty and there is nothing impossible for him to do. You might say in your heart that I am not going to do this and if God says that is what is going to happen, it will happen.

That is because you have no power over your life.

Q=Being a beautiful  woman, you must have several admirers  chasing you . How do you with  such advances?

A--I just appreciate them and thank them.

Q=And also the stubborn ones?

A--You will have your own way of putting them off. May be, probably as a child while growing up, I never saw myself as beautiful because I was a tomboy. So, I see myself more like a boy than a girl. May be, when it was time for me to get married, I started thinking about it.

To me, everybody is beautiful because everything God created is beautiful. I remember that when I was a teenager, they used to call me Okin and then I wondered why they call me that name.

Q=What kind of a child were you while you were growing up?
A--Oh, dear I pity my mother. I was very stubborn. I told you that I was a tomboy, I was something else.

I climbed trees and I fought a lot. I was a fighter and I didn’t fight with girls because I saw them as lower species because I was a tomboy so I fought with boys a lot. When I look back, I just wonder what kind of a child I was.

Q=What was usually the cause of your constant fights?
 

A--a times things, both relevant and irrelevant. It could be anything, it could be that you jumped the gutter before me. It could be anything.

Q=What’s your advice for younger women hoping to be like you?
A--l ways listen to the voice of my parents because they have seen what is ahead that you will not see because you are young. And through experience, they have seen a lot.
So, you should always listen to them. Secondly, be hard working, believe in yourself. As a lady, don’t believe you will use yourself to get to the top because the end is always too bad.
  Rachael Oniga, opens up on how her failed marriage drove her into a successful career and alleged romance with younger colleague Yomi Fash Lanso
She is an easy going person but l'm like a coin with two sides. I could be very hot and I always pray nobody sees the other side of me. I always serve God am good christen.

After the seperation, I met Lai Ashadele and he asked me what I was doing and I said nothing. When I was in Federal School of Science, my friends used to go to NTA. We used to watch them doing 'Village Headmaster', so Lai  said to me, you seem to have a flare for acting, why not go into it?" and since I wasn't doing anything then and was not ready to go into the labour market,  started acting with the 'Memorial Hospital' which was my first job on TV and other jobs started coming in.

Q=You feature more in Yoruba movies than English how come and how financially rewarding is it?

A--I am a crossover actress which made it easy for me to be relevant in the Yoruba movie sector because I had spent time in the English and a lot of the directors and producers in the yoruba sector kept asking me why I select jobs and that I should try doing some jobs with them.

In the area of finance, I must be very sincere with you, its not as rewarding as the english sector of the industry. With them you can earn more. You know they do this brotherhood thing which is "you help me,  help you" kind of thing. If a seasoned producer is producing, he calls on me and if I'm producing mine, I call on him. So there's no question of pay off.

Q=Which movie has been the most challenging for you?

A--Oduduwa. It was really challenging when we had to walk bare footed, expose our bodies. The same with Sango, but that is not to say some other contemporary movies have not been challenging like when l've had to act as a doctor. I always try to learn all so that I can bet a profession so l am not found wanting. I believe in looking it, playing it, like when l was opportuned to act for Peter Igho of NTA and when l walked into the hospital in one of my scenes, even the nurses never knew I was  acting, they thought I was a doctor. So, what I'm saying is that all roles are challenging because you have to put in  best.

Q=Is any of your kids interested in acting?
A--No, but they love music, catwalking and when I'm in the house, they just amuse me.

Q=What led to the seperation between you and your late husband?

A--The African thing I would say. Another woman came in and before I knew it, I was out of the house.
Q=Did you intentionally leave or will you were sent packing?

Q=He is dead now. He was a man that not  quarrelling, kind, loving and caring but suddenly the pillar just broken  down  and it was like you have to leave the house. His family intervened but his mother was in support of me leaving. Sometimes, you have mothers-inlaw who would want to destroy their son's marriage for no reason.is mother was married to someone with many wives, she is the type that does not believe in taking someone to the altar.

Her real reason for trying to to seperate us was that if the man dies, and he has taken the woman to the altar, all the properties of the man belongs to her. She encouraged him.

Q=So did your husband married  you from the altar?
A--although He did not listen to her intially, but after the wedding and eight years of being together, serious pressure started coming in and l was virtually forced out of the house, because I was carried from the house to the hospital. The whole thing seems physical and as God would have it, the woman who had caused the whole problem never came into the house not even for one day, This was because  I left,eventually  another woman chased her out of the relationship too.