Nancy Isime, a Nollywood actor and a TV host, started off as a model so she could raise money for school. Later on, in 2011, she was asked to audition for the TV show Echoes and got the role. Isime tells HFPA journalist Tina Jøhnk Christensen how she was taught the art of acting on the job.

“I am extremely grateful to all the people I met. The directors and co-actors encouraged me. I was really shy and withdrawn and I thought I hadn’t talent in acting but they thought I had it in me.”

Regardless of her doubts, she wasn’t afraid of a new challenge. “I take everything seriously. I am very competitive with myself. I feel like anything that anybody puts me into and anything anybody pays me for, I must give 100 percent and be really good at it.”

She has been acting ever since and has shot over 30 films and TV shows. She also has her own talk show, The Nancy Isime Show, and she is the host of The Voice Nigeria. One of her latest movies, in which she stars, is Kambili: The Whole 30 Yards and can be seen on Netflix. The romantic comedy is a story about an almost 30-year-old woman who wants to get married before her big birthday.

“Kambili is so relatable. Kambili is everyone in Nigeria. In my country, no matter how much you achieve as a woman, it’s like: ‘Are you married? Do you have a husband? It’s always about: Do you have kids?’ You could be the head of the biggest company in the country, employing millions of people and empowering so many people, but: ‘Are you married’? I can laugh about it now, but it’s annoying to see it because I don’t think a woman’s marital status should make or break her.”

She celebrates Kambili’s choices and is inspired by her. “Her story just makes me emotional because she found her path, her dreams, and just started to do her, and honestly, I just celebrate that so much. This film has inspired so many people in my country and I received so many messages. People were talking about how they can relate to the story and how it’s about how people can work on themselves and find themselves and start to create dreams.”

Listen to the podcast and hear what kind of professions she tried before becoming a model and an actor; what kind of film schools are in Nigeria; how is the movie business developing in Nigeria and how it is different from Hollywood; what was her dad’s reaction when he learned that Nancy was pursuing a career as an actor; what kind of child she was; what she would do if she wouldn’t be an actor; what motivates her to reach her goals; what kind of experience she had in Norway while filming the movie Lagos to OsloLiving in Bondage: Breaking Free