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THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JUNE 30, 2018
SUPER SATURDAY IFEANYI KALU I Have a Crush on Genevieve Nnaji The cult following movie celebrities like RMD, Ramsey Nouah and Jim Iyke receive may arguably not define Ifeanyi Kalu’s present status in Nollywood. But he's sure on the streak of success with offers coming his way as he tells Ferdinand Ekechukwu in this encounter
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e is quite acceptable - cool, calm and convivial - in appearance. With a distinct look that stands him out from the pack, Ifeanyi Kalu represents a new hue on the canvass of Nollywood actors. Knowledgeable too and soft-spoken, he cuts the image of one born with silver-spoon. At first exchange, his character and charisma could leave you guesstimating. At some point during the conversation, he would chuckle. Sometimes he laughs out loud, like one catching up with an old friend especially when the subject touches on juicy spots. His vocation in the arts cuts across fashion, modeling, compering and acting, his main stay. “I actually started out as a model though I did TV adverts/commercials and billboards.
My latest movie, ‘Lurikos’ is big It’s very difficult to be a method actor in Nigeria
“That’s where I started from before I got into acting. Also, I’m a fashion designer that’s on the low right now. I’m pretty much doing a lot of movies these days. At the moment I’m trying to balance both so none would suffer for the other. So, I do fashion alongside acting and once in a while, the modeling gigs come but not like before. Also I compere events as well,” he revealed. With a second class upper degree in Computer Science, he just could not see himself sitting on the system writing computer programmes and all of those codes. Not even with the added qualifications from NIIT that certified him in Java and Oracle as well. So he quits. “I did come out with good grades, but it just wasn’t my thing. I just couldn’t see myself sitting on the system writing programmes. I was just trying and trying and trying. It just wasn’t me,” he sighed intermediately and laughed. “But that was me just trying to do a different thing. I stopped and went to a fashion school.” He would later enroll at the Royal Arts Academy run by renowned filmmaker, Emem Isong. Remarkably, Kalu’s foray into acting has been a fulfilling one that created his moment. All thanks to the filmmaker whom he described as a veteran. “I got introduced to her by my sister. This was in 2010 or there about. I had to enroll at her academy. And then this particular day there was an audition. I just did the audition and I was selected for the role after the audition and I got the role.” While at the film school he honed his talent and prepped his acting skills. Same year, he was cast in his first movie in a television series. Shortly after that came his first major appearance in the movie ‘Kokomma’, also from the academy. The film school is known to have churned out classy Nollywood movies like ‘Reloaded’, ‘Kiss and Tell’, ‘Weekend Getaway’, ‘Lagos Cougars’, and so many other movies. Kalu starred in the latter. “From there people started to look out and say ‘okay I think I like this guy, I think he can do this for me, he can do that for me’. I was also in ‘Tinsel’ for like a season or two. And then from there it just started coming, coming, and coming,” he crooned. “And here we are today and I’m very hopeful for a better tomorrow.” How far can the passion for acting take him? He took a deep breath and answered: “That’s a very broad question. Sometimes you never know how far you can go until you are told ‘okay we need you to do this or we need you to do that’. But with the much I know, I can go really far. Because for now I don’t really think, apart from taking my beards and everything off, there’s nothing I have done farther than that really. I think I would go far for it even to jump from a skyscraper all the way down for the movies I will do that as long as my safety is assured.” Speaking of passion, in a movie he starred recently, the handsome dude was made to take off his hair, beards and eyebrow everything just to tell the true story the way it ought to be so as to depict the real character. Inspired by true live events, the emotion-laden movie could have taken away from