By Scoop Reporter
LEGENDARY Nigerian Nollywood movie sensation, Genevieve Nnaji, yesterday turned 41 and it doesn’t look like the beautiful thespian has aged at all.
Genevieve, born May 3, is a Nigerian actress, producer, and director. She won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 2005, making her the first actress to win the award.
In 2011 she was honored by the Nigerian government as a member of the Order of the Federal Republic for her contribution to Nollywood.
Her directorial debut film Lionheart is the first Netflix original from Nigeria and the first Nigerian submission for the Oscars. The film was disqualified because it had conducted most of the dialogue in English.
Nnaji was born in Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria, and grew up in Lagos. As the fourth of eight children, she grew up in a middle-class family; her father worked as an engineer and her mother as a kindergarten teacher.
She attended Methodist Girls College (Yaba, Lagos) before moving to the University of Lagos, where she did a bachelor’s degree in creative arts.
During her studies, she began acting in Nollywood for acting jobs. Nnaji started her acting career as a child actress in the then popular television soap opera Ripples at the age of 8.
In 1998, at the age of 19, she was introduced to the growing Nigerian film industry with the film Most Wanted. Her subsequent films include Last Party, Mark of the Beast and Ijele.
In 2010 she played in the award-winning film Ijé: The Journey. She has so far starred in over 200 Nollywood films.
