I want action movies – Leonora Okine

Actress Leonora Okine, known for her award-winning performance in MTV Shuga series, said she had a brilliant experience working in Ireland, where she recently shot a movie.

According to her, she wished she could get more action roles from that part of the world.

A couple of weeks ago, the beautiful actress returned from Ireland, where she shot an upcoming movie, Immigrant.

She played the role of Simisola, a well-educated Nigerian illegal immigrant in Ireland who works as a cleaner so that she can financially cater for her ill single mother and younger brother who live in Nigeria. The difficulty she goes through is what makes the film incredible.

“Playing a character in a feature based on true events can be overwhelming and probably more so than playing a fictional one. But when I’m required to bring my A-game, there’s nothing like “challenging” in my vocabulary. There were some physically uncomfortable scenes such as a picnic scene that I wasn’t adequately dressed for. I was wearing a man’s shirt with nothing else in the cold. There was also this emotionally filled scene that was shot in the cold rainy evening. Oh dear! Hahaha….The things we do to tell good stories! It was all worth it so no complaints here,” she said about the role.

“The truth is, even within Africa every production is different from others and yet all have similar attributes. The experience I had with this production that I particularly enjoyed was the will to film out in the open in spite of what some might call unfavourable weather conditions. This production found such gorgeous locations and captured them in the film. So we had scenes shot with the most amazing natural backdrops. That was just brilliant.

“I have ambitions to do more international movies. Oh yes! Action packed movies, comedic ones, films that address sensitive social and moral issues etc. So yes, bring it on, I say,” she said about her experience working out there as compared to Africa.

Explaining how she got the role, she said: “One of the producers saw me on Tinsel on an African channel. She couldn’t get her team to watch it at the time so she asked her team to watch MTV Shuga 3, since that’s readily available online. They sent the script, I read it and was thoroughly inspired that it was based on true events. So I accepted the role.”