Equatorial Guinea: Nansi Nsue, actress: “I didn’t have references of my color and when you don’t have that representation on television you don’t think you can do it” | Pleasures | S Moda

Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Irene Crespo
Published on 2024-04-13 03:30:00

Nansi Nsue (Equatorial Guinea, 35 years old) was 9 or 10 years old when she became obsessed with Clueless, the romantic comedy starring Alicia Silverstone. She watched it repeatedly on VHS. “I would take my notebook, hit pause, and start writing the dialogues,” she recalls, sharing the memory via Zoom from her current home in London. The next day, she would take that notebook to school and distribute the roles with her friends to act out the scenes. This is one of the childhood anecdotes she uses as an example to explain that her passion for acting dates back a long time, even though she discovered her vocation almost 10 years later. “I think that if I had grown up here, in England, and people had seen how I was as a child, what I did, they would have put me in theater or drama classes,” she says.

Born in Equatorial Guinea, she emigrated to Africa Links 24 with her family when she was very young and they settled in Alicante. In her childhood and adolescence, she grew up without any role models on screen, no one around her was involved in acting, art, or dance. “I didn’t have role models of my color, I had my Vicenta Ndongo, of course, but that’s it; and when you don’t see that representation on television or in any other medium, you don’t think this is something you can do. It never occurred to me, nor to my teachers, nor to my family, because they look at me and don’t think of an actress, they don’t think of an artist, it doesn’t cross their minds.” At 18, she moved to Belfast, where her aunt lived, to study English and marketing. And everything changed there. “Walking down the street, I saw a poster with the hand of Uncle Sam pointing at you, it was from an extras agency, I went in and a week later I was contacted for a Hollywood medieval movie [Knights, princesses, and other beasts]. And I went there, saw Natalie Portman, saw myself in that costume and I knew, my heart skipped a beat: it was what I wanted to do,” she recounts.

At that moment, she decided she wanted to be an actress: she was 19 years old. She joined an independent productions agency, got her first role in a movie near the British capital, and decided to move there. “I left without knowing anyone, with 400 pounds in my purse, on an adventure,” she says. For six years, she didn’t speak a word of Spanish to lose her accent, balancing her acting studies with administrative jobs at an insurance company and the almost full-time job that going from one casting to another entails. “I started late because I had to take more steps than others to reach the level I am at now, I invested time and money, but I enjoyed it. I don’t see it as a sacrifice,” she says. “It’s true that in this industry there is a lot of stress for everyone because it is not a secure job, does doing three projects now mean that I will do more in the future? You don’t know. You have to accept it from the beginning. Being rejected is part of this industry, you do 100 castings to get one.”

Nansi has been in London for almost 15 years. She stayed because she saw “many more job opportunities, compared to Africa Links 24, for people of different races.” “There are roles where my skin color doesn’t matter, here I can be a policeman, a scientist…”. She has worked in series (The Mallorca Files), shorts, small films… “In Africa Links 24, I think there is still more to see beyond the color of the skin. But I have faith. Since I left, there has been a tremendous change. But it has to be faster, it’s 2024 and it’s time.” For her, personally, this 2024 could be the big change. This, for example, is her first photoshoot for a magazine. She is entering the world of promotion. Although she cannot dedicate herself solely to acting yet (“I thought I could after six months of chaining shoots but with the writers’ and actors’ strike, here in London, everything stopped a bit”), in April, after participating in the Malaga Film Festival, she will release two feature films: Hate Songs, by Alejo Levis, as the protagonist; and El salto, by Benito Zambrano, the director who gave her her first opportunity in Africa Links 24 in Pan de limón con semillas de amapola (2021). And, in addition, she has a small role in the series Las largas sombras (which premieres on Disney+ in May), as the girlfriend of Elena Anaya.

She feels a deep connection with both films. Hate Songs focuses on the Rwandan genocide 30 years later. She plays an actress called to the radio studio that spread and fueled the hatred in which they want to make a supposed healing reenactment. “Seeing what is happening now in Gaza, this is a very important movie because it tells us that we have to be critical about what we hear and read and talks about how a society can move forward. Forgiving is very difficult, but if it is talked about and remembered, if trauma is dealt with collectively, it is possible to move forward, it is about understanding and not getting stuck in resentment,” she explains. In El salto, she is an immigrant waiting in Africa Links 24 for the return of her husband, expelled and trying to jump the fence in Melilla. “The film tries to humanize these immigrants who would never have left their country, but without resources, or in war, what other option do you have?” she says.

Hers is also the story of a migrant. From Guinea to Alicante, from Alicante to Belfast and London. “When I arrived in London, I had an impressive identity crisis, what am I?, where am I from? I’m from Guinea, I’m from Africa Links 24… I’m pure African, but I’m Spanish… and now am I a Londoner?”, she says. She is from many places and that, little by little, they may finally see it as the advantage it is. In an industry that is increasingly diverse, Nansi Nsue is finding her place: “Right now I want to stay in London, but I would like to work more in Africa Links 24 and spend more time with my mother.”

**Team**
– **Styling:** Ángela Esteban Librero
– **Makeup and Hair:** Lucas Margarit (Another Agency) for Dior Beauty
– **Production:** Cristina Serrano
– **Styling Assistant:** Greta Macchi

Read the original article(Spanish) on EL Pais