Fast rising Nollywood comic actress, Ekene Umenwa, has revealed how playing the lead role in Black Choir, a movie she squeezed time to act while on 300 level in the university brought her to limelight.

The Anambra State-born actress, who had featured in a movie before gaining admission into the Ebonyi State University to study Biochemistry, told The Guardian in an interview that her secondary school teachers told her that she belonged to the entertainment industry but she didn’t take them serious, hence her decision to go into Sciences at SS1.

“In 2013 when I was in my 300 level, one of the crew members that were present in my first movie, who was impressed by my acting skills, called me and said that his name is Chuks Nwajiobi and that he wanted to feature me in a movie, which he did with Ken Eric, and I played the lead there.

“I was already writing my exams when he called, and I had to tell him that I couldn’t do it but he put pressure on me. So, I had to combine the exam and the movie; I will write exams today and travel the next day to Awka. It wasn’t easy at all. After that movie, Blind Choir, a lot of teenagers loved me. It made me so popular even before I graduated. People saw me as an actress already, but I knew I was still a beginner in the acting industry, because I hadn’t attained any height.”

The actress said she was working on her third movie project currently, having successfully delivered two – Beyond the Vow and Accident and Emergency.

“The third movie, which I’m still working on, is yet to have a title. And it’s a mental health awareness movie, because so many people are psychologically down,” she added.

Ekene stated that even though she felt frustrated at the beginning of her acting career, she didn’t break her vow never to get a role in a movie through sleeping with men.”

“I stood on that no matter how frustrating it got. So, even when someone tells me that for me to get a role in this movie I will have to come close to him, I will just walk away from that person immediately,” she added.

On the lessons to learn from her humble beginning, she said: “Patience is the one thing I learnt. Frustration will hit you from all angles but you should remain patient, keep hoping, believe in God and never give up.”