UK born, Caroline Chikezie is very resolute about her acting career, despite stiff opposition from her parents. She is sought after by television and film directors in the United Kingdom. LAWRENCE AMAKU reports.
Caroline Chikezie is a British actress. Caroline, 5 ‘10’, was born on February 19, 1979, in London, England, United Kingdom to Nigerian parents. .
She is probably most famous for playing the role of ‘Sasha Williams’ in the British teen soap, As If, from 2001 to 2004. She has also played Elaine Hardy in the British television drama, Footballers’ Wives.
She appeared as Lisa Hallett, a member of the secret organisation of Torchwood who had been transformed into a half-human half-Cyberman in “Cyberwoman,” an episode of the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood. She also starred as Nasuada in the movie Eragon and as Tamara, a fellow demon hunter, in the third Season Premiere of Supernatural.
The youngest of four children, Caroline was raised in London by her mother. Her father made regular visits to the UK.
Caroline went to a private Catholic girls’ school in Forest Gate in London, but spent weekends at the famous Italia Conti stage school.
“I was always singing and dancing around the house, and in the beginning, my parents thought it was quite cute because I’d put on little shows for their friends,” she said.
“But when it started to get serious, they were not amused.”
According to her, her ambition to make a career in the UK movie would have come to nought, if the antics her parents had employed to dissuade her from pursuing her career when she was 14 years old had materialised. Her family were so appalled by her career choice that they tricked her into leaving the UK. They were determined to midwife her into the medical profession after her father, who runs a hospital in the Anambra State in Nigeria, as they had planned and packed her off to a strict boarding school in Nigeria.
Caroline would later recall, 12 years after, the experience:
“It was like an abduction. It was very traumatic and I didn’t know what had hit me. I didn’t get the chance to say good-bye to my friends and it was a massive culture shock.”
She was told they were going on holiday for a fortnight – but almost as soon as they arrived in Nigeria, she was whisked off to the church-run school.
“My mother and father are religious and thought I was going off the rails.
“I was academically bright and they didn’t want it to go to waste. I was carrying their hopes and dreams on my shoulders, and to them acting was a joke,” she noted.
Twelve years on, however, she has proved them wrong. She is one of the country’s leading black talents, in demand from TV and film directors on both sides of the Atlantic.
Cheeringly, she has mended the crack in the relationship between her and her mother, but Caroline’s father, Alfred, 60, the director of a hospital in Nigeria, has found it hard to forgive her.
In 1998, she won a part in the award-winning British film Babymother, about a gang of teenage girls growing up on a tough London council estate.
This was followed by roles in TV soaps such as Holby City, Casualty and a series of adverts. Her other television work includes the acclaimed drama, Babyfather, 40, Judas Kiss, Free Fall and Brothers and Sister.
Her biggest break was as Sasha in T4 and Channel 4’s long-running series As If, a trendy drama chronicling the lives of young Londoners in Notting Hill.
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