Quick introduction
Elma: Hi my name is Elma Mbadiwe, I play Carmen in Far From Home.
Genoveva: Hi my name is Genoveva Umeh, I play Zina in Far From Home.
Tomi: Hello, my name is Tomi Ojo and I play Rahila in Far From Home
At what point did you merge your personality and your character? What was the magic moment?
Elma: I think that was from the audition to be honest, because I had to do the auditions so many times and with so many people. So I’ve been Carmen for a long time even before they called action (laughs).
Genoveva: I mean Zina is really fun and I’m extremely fun, so it wasn’t hard to be fun with her. It was just fun playing someone so confident. I wish I was as confident when I was younger, but yeah, it wasn’t as hard as I expected it would be.
Tomi: I think from the first audition, I was very confident that I was going to get the role, kind of. It was easy for me from the audition to work with that character, and something I was looking forward to. I was so excited I got it.
What message do you hope your characters pass to viewers?
Elma: With a lot of the characters on the show, I hope people understand that with human beings it’s never really black and white. I wouldn’t say Carmen was a bad person, she is a human being with flaws just like everybody else. So there’s a lot of gray areas and we need to be kinder to each other. I make a lot of excuses for Carmen because I can and I should, because we’ve all been there at some points in our lives, maybe not addicted drugs exactly, but to other things.
Genoveva: Yeah. So with Zina, she is definitely physically less opaque. She’s eccentric in the way that she dresses. She wears her crop tops, like fanny packs, boots, different colored hair. I hope that people or young people that feel that they are different in style can emulate that energy and say, you know what if Zina can do it, I can do it!.
I also think that she’s an extremely confident girl, she’s outspoken, and I hope young people learn from that and are confident in sharing their voice and knowing that their voice is important, their thoughts and what they believe in. It’s important that they should stand by it.
Tomi: It would be dreams, because Rahila is a dreamer as you will see, she’s naive and the youngest among all of them which is very excusable. So I would say people are allowed to believe whatever they believe in; whatever they envision, they should not allow anybody to take that away from them because your dreams are gifts. Do not let anybody tell you not to dream.
In episode one Rahila did something that affected her brother, would you call it a betrayal to the relationship they have?
Tomi: As a young person that has the responsibility of her family on her shoulder she feels like she has this responsibility to uplift her family from poverty and all that. I wouldn’t say she betrayed anybody and at the same time she didn’t really think things through because she’s naive and young. She just wants to solve the immediate problem and think about the consequences of her action later. So she’s doing it out of innocence and sense of responsibility without thinking about it thoroughly. Teenagers just rush into actions.
I really love the trio (Zina, Ishaya & Frank). So would there be any subtraction or addition?
Genoveva: You’re going to have to watch. But I feel like in terms of their relationship, it’s nice that we see young people and how they function, how well they can relate with each other and how well they can support each other. So it will be interesting to see where the story goes with their relationship on the 16th.
Elma, so we see Carmen struggling to maintain “an image”, what would you advise similar persons to your character?
Elma: Just chill, it’s not that serious at the end of the day, if the pressure is self imposed, you need to chill. And if it’s from your parents, like it was for Carmen you need to have a conversation with them, but it’s really not that serious the end of the day, because she did not want to do half of the things she did, she was forced, and it’s the kind of force that it’s not like a hand pressing your neck but you just have to do it.
It was subtle, but still damaging to her life.
Let us run a quick ‘This or That’ for your characters
To Rahila: Mummy’s girl or Daddy’s girl.
-Daddy’s girl
To Carmen: Partying or Studying
-Partying
To Zina: Bad boys or Nerds
-Mixture.
And that’s a wrap!. Thank you so much.
All: Thank you.
