Kingsley Amadi is shortlisted for Screen Nation’s Digital-is Media Awards for Favourite Webseries actor.
If that wasn’t the cherry to top the cake, the check this – ‘SPIN’ is also nominated for Favourite Webseries Ensemble.
In conjunction with his grassroots achievements, Kingsley Amadi is among our ranks to be the next emerging talent you must keep on your radar for in 2017. Already he has acted in his first feature-length role in ‘Untamed’ and had a strong recurring role in ‘SPIN’. His ability to be able to realistically portray his character hasn’t gone unnoticed, as his first earliest actor role was playing a homeless man in a special monologue on homelessness. This year he ‘keeps-within-fam’ with ‘Dear Mr White’ by his brother Andy Amadi and has starred in positively acclaimed theatre production ‘Mungo Park’. So for the Amadi team, there’s a lot of things to smile about this year.
Kingsley Amadi has a chat with us about everything pertaining to his journey so far. He reveals the first person who spotted his raw talent during college, as well as the process of applying to one of the prestigious drama schools. He also gives his thoughts about “New Nollywood” – the demand for the public for original, diverse content and the continuous prospects of working with his brother on future projects.
There’s a lot to take from this interview…and interesting things about Kingsley Amadi that you will get to know. So let’s get right into it.
1. Please introduce yourself and give us a brief history into your acting career.
My name is Kingsley Amadi. I started acting while studying performing arts at Newham Sixth Form College. At the age 17, I got a role in a play called ‘Life On The Stairs’. Which focused on knife & gun crimes at the time. Due to the play’s success, we toured around London and Birmingham. This experience surfaced my passion for acting; with the help of my drama teacher who supported my new found dream and passion. She encouraged me to apply for drama schools to develop my talent. This lead me to attend and obtain a Honours degree in Acting at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.
After my experience of drama school, I got to work with my twin brother Andy Amadi on a theatre play ‘The Stick’. This was the start of a new working relationship which brought on Webseries ‘Spin’ in 2012. Spin was a stepping stone to putting my name out there and building a fan base for myself and the webseries.
The success of ‘Spin’ pushed me to work even harder, which enabled me to get a part in the Westend production of “Mr Foote’s Other Leg” starring Simon Russell Bale in October 2015.
This year 2016 I was honoured to get a part in ‘Mungo Park: Travels The Interior Of Africa’ where I played with 11 different characters males and females of different age groups, white and black. We toured around Scotland performing 42 shows, with our first 20 being at Summer Hall for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
2. What motivated you to decide that acting was your ideal career? Did you experience any struggles whilst applying for the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts?
My passion for acting is my drive. Living and learning through the different characters I play is a feeling like no other. It was a place where I felt at home or free (as you might say), to be able to play with characters was something I found fascinating even when I was younger.
However, the moment it struck me that acting was my ideal career was when I was attending college and our drama teacher gave us a task to create our own monologues and show it to the class. My monologue was about a man asking for forgiveness from his wife who had passed away in a car crash while they were arguing and he was now filled with regret. After my monologue, a girl from my class was crying and that was a huge shock to me. My drama teacher felt I did a great job and suggested that I should pursue acting seriously. She told me I should consider applying for some drama schools, and that was when the struggle began. By the time I started applying for drama schools it was already late in terms of applying, as most of them were done with auditions. However, I was able to apply for two drama schools — LAMDA & ITALIA CONTI ACADEMY OF THEATRE ARTS. I applied for LAMDA first as I learnt they were one of the top drama schools in the country so I was really happy that they were still open for auditions. A letter came through the post for me from LAMADA , it was a rejection letter and that was a crushing blow however I did not dwell on it. I focused on ITALIA CONTI; making the decision that it was either ITALIA CONTI or going to university to study drama. So I put everything into my auditions, was able to make it through the audition stages and was accepted.
That was one of the milestone moments in my life.
3. Your webseries ‘SPIN’ was a huge hit on Youtube. How has your experience of screenwriting and acting, prepare you for the bigger world of film, theatre or television?
‘Spin’ has been a huge platform in career and very educational. From an actor’s prospective, it bought on the opportunity to work with some amazingly talented actors, who challenged me to work harder and improve my craft. One of the few lessons I picked up from the webseries was we had to be consistent, especially with release times of the series. But we persevered and ‘Spin’ turned to be an amazing and greatly loved by the public. Its also helped me balance my performance as well on screen. Since I was trained more in Theatre than in Film, I would give the same amount of energy I would do on stage, but after acting in ‘Spin’ consistently. it’s helped channel the right energy to give a good performance when I am in from of a camera. Although, I am still learning.
4. What was the purpose of collaborating with your brother to produce such a profound monologue ‘Dear Mr White?’ Was it one or both of the following two reasons:
– To deal with the issues of racism in terms of immigration and asylum;
– Create awareness about the struggles surrounding those who overstay in London because of fear about returning home to poverty.
Well, you could say its a bit of both because the monologue does deal with racism & immigration aspect of the situation, and yes we do want to create awareness for those who are working their hardest doing the jobs nobody wants (not to mention working longer hours than you and me) to make sure they don’t go back to poverty. They have the same degrees like you and I but in their own countries, many so called lawyers exploit that and we all know these type of people or we see them every day in our work place. To be honest, it’s something that needs to change in this country especially.
This project is very important to my brother and I cause we travel to Nigeria almost every two years and what we see out there is very sad. You literally see people suffering and they just want out. The government are not doing anything to help them. Unemployment rates are sky high especially in a wealthy country like Nigeria and there is poverty. So when they do manage to come over to Europe they don’t want to go back cause it’s their belief that they must do everything they can to survive. But when they do come here to the UK they are promised stay in the country by their “lawyers” but its all a lie. So I feel that’s why the public like this monologue because it opens the doors for discussion. ‘Dear Mr White’ because they all can relate and gives people an outlook to what life is like with immigration and racism.
5. Your brother Andy Amadi, who wrote ‘Dear Mr White’, has a real sense of flair when it comes to scriptwriting. Any possibilities as to whether both of you will work again to produce another provocative monologue?
Yes of course! I love working with my brother because he challenges me and forces me to get out of my comfort zone. We work so well together and he gives me so much creative freedom to act out the characters the way I want. He has really worked hard on his scriptwriting over the years.
In this day and age, you don’t have to sit through an entire movie to be provocative and inspiring. Andy and I produce short monologues which will make you as the viewer question your beliefs and views on everyday life situations and dilemmas. We aim to bring to light situations which are ignored by the government and treated as if they are not of importance. Before the monologue ‘Dear Mr White’, me and Andy produced another short piece which focused on the everyday life of a homeless person. ‘Homeless Man Tells His story’ showed the struggles faced by homeless people and yet the government does nothing to reduce the rate of homeless people in the country. The aim for these monologues is to bring awareness where there’s ignorance.
I enjoy working with my brother and I will definitely be working with him in the future; whether it is monologues or even more webseries. The Amadi Clan is sticking together.
6. You’ve also worked with Richard Kattah on ‘Untamed’, ‘Stake Out’ and ‘Dead Note’, where you had a protagonist role in both films. How important was it to you to show your versatility as an upcoming actor?
It’s always brilliant to work with Richard Kattah. He is a talented individual, who’s driven and constantly working on something new. I feel privileged to have worked with him so many times; he is a man who never runs out of ideas and keeps the ball rolling. I admire his work ethic and hope to continue working with him on more films.
Acting is all about being versatile, being able to conform to the different character’s requirements and needs. Lack of versatility restricts you to playing the same type of roles; which is a limitation as an actor and which is quite frankly, boring. I would like to follow in the footsteps of my favourite actors like Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hardy, Johny Depp, Tom Hanks and Jamie Foxx who can act one end of the spectrum to the other spectrum effortless. I strive to be like them in the foreseeable future.
7. We see on your twitter profile, that you’ve placed ‘singer’ in your mini-bio. What’s that all about?! Does that mean that you can really sing?
O, my God! Yes, I can sing literally. I’ve been singing ever since I was a kid. I still write songs till now but I need to release some material. Hopefully, this will happen sometime in the near future. What can say, I love music.
8. Describe your personality as a mainstream movie title.
Cool Running.
9. You recently toured for the play ‘Mungo Park’, which received a five-star rating at the Edinburgh Fringe according to the Edinburgh 49. Can you give an insight as to what the play was about and your personal reflections in appearing in the play?
Mungo Park tells the story of a Scottish explorer who explored West Africa. He went on his first journey in 1796 and was so fascinated with what he saw and how much he learnt while exploring, that he went on a second journey in 1805. Until today, nobody knows how Mungo Park died. I felt very privileged to be part of such an amazing theatre play where I got the chance to play 11 different characters. When I first got the script, I said to the director “So how am I going be doing this really quick changes?” Because there were only 3 actors and over 22 characters. He said it’ll be fine. All we will need are simple wigs and props to create the different characters. He wanted us to change into the characters on stage so the audience could see how the changes were done. As I previously said, I love a challenge but this was something completely different to what I had seen, but I knew I had to get the job done.
Our Director Martin Lyngby gave us so much freedom to dive into our imagination and create our characters one by one. We rehearsed for 6 weeks in Copenhagen during May 2016, which was a wonderful experience. Few of the characters did change during rehearsals once I got to understand them through rehearsing. We performed for a month at Edinburgh Fringe, where it was received remarkably well by the audience and was given amazing reviews. Winning the award was the cherry on top of the cake at Edinburgh Fringe, making the experience amazing!
10. What other exclusive performances do you have coming up at the end of the year? Where do you see yourself and your career in the next year?
‘A Secret Heart’ short film will be coming out soon directed by Cary Sawhney who is a brilliant director, but apart from that nothing at the moment. I have a few projects which are not set in stone yet but you will surely see my face around next year. Everything is still in the works at the moment. Next year I hope to go on to bigger and better things, maybe even an appearance in a television drama. I might be touring ‘Mungo Park’ around the Scandinavian countries sometime next year. Dates are not set in stone.
11. How do you feel the mood surrounding the arts has changed/shifted in the wake of the whole call of diversity in digital media? Do you think it’s created an atmosphere where people can be the change and create independent content that gives them ownership rights to their own work?
I don’t think much has really changed. We have been doing our own thing for a long time now (i.e. creating our own work be it in theatre or film). Of course, I have seen more people of colour on the big screens and on stage which I have to say has been great to see, but we still have a long way to go. We still need to create our own, be the change and show it in our productions. We can’t just say we need more diversity and go back to our old habits. The rise of online entertainment has finally put the power in the people’s hands. WE (The People) have created and are creating shows/series WE wish to see on the TV channels; no matter what race you are. That’s the way it should be. Someone said “People need to see themselves on screen” and I believe that’s true. We need to be the change and the change starts with us. It starts now.
12. Name three important films that you feel are the best of all time and why.
Awwww man I have more than three! Jesus, I have so many popping into my head right now.
1. ‘The GreenMile’ – brilliant Cast and story. I actually cried when I watched this!
2. ‘The Matrix’ – when this came out this had “cool” written all over it. I was amazed by the camera work (even though it has gotten far better since that time) and I was blown away by the plot, use of CGI and action.
3. ‘The Wolf of Wall Street – I know some people might be like ‘WHAT?!’ But hey, I loved this film because one of my favourite actors KING LEO (Leonardo DiCaprio) performance was just fabulous. It even earned him a nomination at the Oscars for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.
13. It would seem very clear that the next chapter of Nollywood is global domination. We are witnessing fresh new talent across the film industry. What’s your take on this?
Nollywood has really stepped up over the years. The fresh new talents and new camera qualities have really helped shape the “New Nollywood” as I like to call it. I have to say I’m very proud of that. I felt that the talent was there and the resources were there, but it took us a while to recognise our potential and finally use it. I also love the mix of ‘old skool’ actors and the new generation of talent together in the new movies. You could tell that new ideas are being made, if not great ideas actually! It’s brilliant that Nollywood is being shown to the world. You can now tell that a lot of money is being pushed into promoting Nollywood There’s still a lot of work to be done but It’s only going to get better and better from here on out. Give us more time.
14. Who else do you recommend that we should keep our eyes on, apart from yourself?
Keep your eyes on my progress! I made a big decision to embark on this journey to be a great actor. it will be interesting to see where it will take me.
15. Do you have any last words to end this interview?
Yes! please keep up to date with all my theatre, films & videos on my website www.kingsleyamadi.com
Also follow me on socials media:
Facebook: Kingsley Amadi
Instagram & Twitter: @kingsleyamadi
I will also like to say a big THANK YOU to you guys New Wave District for the love and support not just for me but for the people in the Arts Industry. Keep up the great work!!!!