During a recent interview on Arise News about his latest film, “Family Gbese,” popular Nigerian actor Uzor Arukwe dropped a bombshell—a revelation he’d shared before but one many may have missed: not everyone in his family knows what he does for a living.
“My dad still doesn’t know that I’m an actor,” he confessed.
At this point, we’re left with the same question we had back in July: “Does his father live under a rock?” Because with a resume rich in movies like “Sugar Rush” and “A Tribe Called Judah,” Arukwe’s face is practically a staple on Nigerian screens.
Surely, his father has caught at least one of his blockbuster performances, right?
Here’s the scoop: Before his rise to Nollywood stardom, Arukwe had a “dream job” by most Nigerian parents’ standards, that is, a white-collar career. With degrees in Economics and Business Administration, plus an MBA, he spent a decade climbing the corporate ladder—five years in telecom, followed by another five years in retail—before taking the leap into acting in 2018.
In a chat with Chude Jideonwo back in July, he admitted,
“I’ve been doing this all my life, but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to hang my corporate boots and then go with my creative boots.”
Spoiler alert: he did, and it wasn’t pretty at first. Between 2012 and 2013, he only landed one acting gig. “I was at home for one year. I had no job, and nobody was calling me for film. It was terrible….You pray in the morning, then everyone goes to work, and it’s just you.”
Despite being paid peanuts at the start and people treating him terribly, Arukwe says he treated every performance like his last.
As for his father, he’s heard but doesn’t want to believe. In his mind, Arukwe, the firstborn son of an engineer, was groomed for a career in something more “respectable” like Banking or Law. His family didn’t exactly cheer him on when he was the school’s top dancer and actor.
His mother might preach “freedom of choice,” but his father still doesn’t like the idea of creative arts. “He doesn’t think I should do it, doesn’t want me to do it, and doesn’t know I do it. I still lie to him about it.”
At this point, we’re guessing someone in the family must have spilled the beans to dear old Dad, but he’s either pretending not to know or just biding his time before he delivers an old-school Nigerian parent lecture.
Maybe one day he’d even surprise his son by showing up to a movie premiere with a mixture of fear, shock, and possibly pride on his face. We can’t wait for that moment—it’d be a scene worthy of a Nollywood movie.