The quite woman in the Nollywood social,Kate Henshaw-Nuttal many stakeholders and of- course, lovers of the Nigerian home video industry would agree, is one of the very few actresses that are largely scandal-free.
In fact, her reputation, when compared with any other built over 16 years in the industry, appears to always go ahead of her. Little wonder she tops the charts as the most patronised Nigerian actress on both consumer and other products.
Apart from being the face of ONGA seasonings, she is also an ambassador for telecommunications giant, Globacom. She also doubless as an ambassador for the National Cervical Cancer Prevention Programme of Nigeria (NCCPPN). In addition, only recently, Henshaw-Nuttal was chosen, alongside a few notable Nigerians, by the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), as an Ankara -ambassador– the new African fabric-based dress code promoted by the agency.
Nuttal said she owes a lot to the late Nollywood actor/producer/director, J.T Tom West who took her to her first audition in 1993. After, the hit movie. When the Sun Sets was shot, she went ahead to feature in other top-rate movies such as Domitilla, Closed Chapter,
Compromise, Games Men Play, Stronger than Pain, Show Me Heaven, A Million Tears, Rivals and a whole lot of others.
Henshaw-Nuttal studied Biochemistry at the University of Calabar and then furthered at the School of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba.
Her mother, she says, who is “extremely hardworking and prayerful,” is her role model; and her philosophy of life is “stand for what you believe in, even if the crowd is on the other side.”
And her take on why she has remained scandal-free: “I feel my work as an artiste should be my driving force and not my personal life, so I try to steer clear from problems or controversies, so to speak. I try not to leave room for insinuations, although being out there in the public eye comes with its pains as people tend to judge you by what they read in the papers.”
Henshaw Nuttal is married to a Briton and they are blessed with a lovely daughter.
Lately, you’ve been quite busy with projects other than what many Nigerians know you by, acting. Judging by the frequency at which you appear at such projects, are we to conclude that you are gradually easing out of acting?
Not at all. My doing other projects doesn’t mean I am leaving acting. I have always been an active person right from my youth and I do try to manage my time very well so as to attend to all that I have to do. Yes, I have been involved in a number of projects but I still make out time to go on sets to do some jobs.
You are married with a kid. How do you manage marriage with work?
The home front is as important as a basic obligation. Now, with my kind of demanding job, I am lucky to have a supportive husband and daughter who know and understands my schedule of work. Once that is sorted out, for an actress it is easy for her to go all-out and do the job after her heart. I happen to fall in that category and that is the secret of my success.
Only a few weeks ago, you were announced an ambassador for the cervical cancer prevention programme. Why do you think you were picked for this job?
Let me just say I had the priviledge of being made a golden link member of the National Cervical Cancer Prevention Programme of Nigeria (NCCPPN) on the 23rd of September, this year. This honour has put me in the fore-front of activities geared towards sensitising the public on the deadly virus. The activities run under the mass medical mission of the NCCPP. Prior to this time, I have had meetings with the Mission, where I was told about what they are doing to create awareness on cervical cancer prevention which is the second largest cancerous ailment in women.
The aim is to establish cervical cancer screening centres in each Local Government Area in Nigeria, such that by the end of the year 2010, we would have achieved universal awareness, train health workers from every LGA in Nigeria on the principles and practice of cervical screening and screen and treat 100,000 rural or under-priviledged women, free of charge. As a woman, I feel obliged to use my status for good and help fellow women to know their status and also help prevent the spread of the cancer to other parts of the body, as most women will be exposed to it during their lifetime and the virus has been known to have a developmental stage of five-30 years! So you could be carrying the virus as you walk around and may not know, let alone do anything about it until it becomes too late. I wish to use this medium to tell every women that the mode of detection is simple and painless and it takes just five minutes.
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