Nollywood Actress Judith Audu Interview With National Mirror - I'm An Actress Blogging Is Just A Hobby

Judith Audu is one of Nollywood’s popular actresses. In this interview with National Mirror, she speaks about the deaths in the entertainment industry and her blog.

How did you feel when you heard of Goldie’s death?

I woke up on February 15 with my phone full of messages and missed calls from a lot of my friends and was wondering what was up with them. I had a very early meeting and so didn’t read any message or read any news until I got to my destination and I then read the messages and saw they all wanted me to confirm if the news was true that Goldie had died and I thought it was a joke! I started asking people where I was what it was all about and I refused to believe it was true even with all the RIPs circulating.

I was just shocked that her life was cut short just like that. She had so many plans lined up for this year. I was watching her video Skibobo yesterday (Tuesday) and tears just rolled down my cheeks. I remembered her plans to tour African countries and do the rest of the videos of her naughty singles and she had only just started. I personally loved her and was fortunate to have chatted with her a couple of times. She was always ready to help me when I asked for her help without referring me to her management.

I once carried out a research on musicians and of all the people I approached, she was the only one that took her time to answer every single question and sent it back promptly and even apologised for the little delay while the rest wanted me to pay them and contact their management. Also recently we spoke about her being my first guest on my TV show that I’ve been working on and she even offered her house if I wanted and that whenever I’m ready, I should let her know. It’s such a shame really that she is dead now and instead of people letting her rest in peace, they are busy creating so much drama over her. I knew her as a very nice, sweet, down to earth, playful, hardworking and loving lady and I pray her soul rests in perfect peace. She will be missed dearly by me.

Has her death taught you any lesson?

My dad died quite early and it isn’t new to me that there is basically nothing in this life and we must be thankful and grateful for every single day we find ourselves among the living.

Treat everyone with respect, forgive quickly and hold no grudges, be loving and don’t forget that the fact that no matter how rich one becomes, it can never buy your life so there is no point carrying our shoulders and treating everyone around us like they are nothing. Goldie’s death proved again that there is nothing in this life so we must live right, be morally upright, be at peace with everyone and be ready whenever our Creator calls us.

Bisi Komolafe, Goldie, Justus Esiri and other entertainers have all died suddenly this year. Do you subscribe to the belief that the industry will witness a lot of deaths this year?

We are not God and we only wake up to new realities everyday so we cannot just conclude that we would witness a lot of deaths this year from our industry, but it has been a sad year right from the first day of the year when we lost Bisi Komolafe to the cold hands of death. Goldie’s death touched me deeply personally and then I woke up to realise the legendary veteran actor that I grew up loving and watching had also been grabbed by death, Uncle Justus Esiri.

It is indeed sad but I would like to stress the importance and dire need of us imbibing a culture of going to the hospital and doing routine checkups that I strongly believe will make people aware if they have any ailment that needs to be treated on time before it is too late and will save a lot of lives. It is sad that Nollywood is fast losing all her awesome, talented and creative veteran actors. I feel really sad about that, I just pray we don’t hear any more bad news again.

You now blog a lot. Are you challenging Linda Ikeji?

That’s very funny. I’m first and foremost an actress, blogging is a hobby, I blog when I’m at home and I’m not in any way challenging Linda Ikeji. I’m not even close. We don’t even write the same thing. I don’t do gossips and it’s a full-time job for her while it’s just a hobby for me so the motivation is totally different.

What do you then intend to achieve as a blogger?

I just love to write when I feel like writing or when someone wants me to write something about them, I do it for the fun of it basically, but as time goes on, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start making money from it too, yes oh.

Can your blog achieve as much as Linda Ikeji’s?

Well, my blog is still a baby compared to Linda’s and if I put as much energy in it as she does, it will go far within a short period of time considering how many hits it has gotten so far and so many dedicated v isitors and readers. If I make it a full-time job like her and post every single happening as they happen, I bet the blog will be a blast and the talk of- the-town in no time.

Would you say your blog has had any achievements so far?

Surprisingly yes. I was shocked when an international director told me he read about an artiste in my blog and called her up. The blog is doing really, really well. Sometimes I just go wow when I think about it. It has gotten over 90,000 hits without me even posting regularly so just imagine if I blog full-time.

You promote a lot of upcoming actors, actresses on your blog. Why?

We have so many talented actors and actresses that people don’t know about and they are not so lucky to sell themselves out so people can read about them and what they can do and have done.

I see them every time and I’m like why did they use that person for that film, didn’t they see you? So I decided to project them by profiling them on my blog and a lot of them have been getting great reviews and even jobs from there. They are my colleagues, most of them are my very good friends, so it gives me great joy to write about talents.

Won’t the success of these upcoming ones displace you in the industry?

I don’t believe someone’s success can displace another because as our faces and names are different, so is our script interpretation and abilities and for the record, I’m always happy when I see people I know moving up the ladder. When it’s a person’s time to shine, nothing can stop it from happening.

What is your current project?

I’m currently on the set of a soap opera called Burning Spears where I’m a crazy maid that’s actually undercover. She is originally the boss’s girlfriend and he brought her in as a maid to have smooth access to her every time. It has been fun shooting so far.