She is one talented actress every good director would want to work with. Pretty and unpretentiously friendly, Kate Henshaw-Nuttall is one Nollywood (as the Nigerian Home Movie Industry is liberally called) personality who has worked herself to a level where she gets the sort of adulation that stars in Hollywood get. A trained microbiologist who is married to a Briton, acting for the African screen diva began in Lagos in 1993 after a chance opportunity to audition for a role in the movie WHEN THE SUN SET. It took that film for Kate to develop an unquenchable passion for acting. Soon producers found her a ready hand for their offerings. Today Kate has by dint of hard work risen to become one of the busiest and highest paid actresses in Nollywood, the world‘s third-biggest film-producing industry with a conservative movie credit estimate of about 150. Despite the usual inclination to use Hollywood as a standard for rating Nollywood, Kate Henshaw-Nuttall says that she does not follow that school of thought but instead believes in the potentials of Nollywood. With a penchant for playing non-glamorous and down trodden roles, she has become a role model to new entrants. Kate’s views on the need for them to be focused have been very strong. She has not stopped admonishing them to look beyond the financial gains and the fame that comes with acting. “I think they should focus on getting it right. Fame and money will come once you get it right? she says. By Shaibu Husseini
Programme Events at the Talent Campus:
Kate Henshaw-Nuttall, Shah Rukh Khan, Maria Schrader, moderated by: Dorothee Wenner
There are few things more pleasurable than seeing a wonderful love story on the big screen. Although love may be regarded as an eternal affair and a natural human
condition, looking at films from the different parts of the world, one can see clear distinctions arising from very different cultural contexts that shape relationships from the "first sight" till "death tears them apart". Morale, ethics, family constellations, gender relations, economics, traditions and religion – all these issues result in what the Western world likes to describe as the most private sphere of an individual.
Three super stars from the genre of "love depiction" – Bollywood’s Shah Rukh Khan, Kate Henshaw-Nuttall of the Nollywood fame and German leading lady and Silver Bear winner Maria Schrader – look at today’s cinema and its purpos as a role model for "real" love stories, as well as a fulfilment of audiences’ desire for escapism and as a reflection of the world we live in – be it in India, Nigeria, Germany or elsewhere.