I cannot choose between my marriage and career – Actress, Amanda Ebeye

Nollywood actress, Amanda Ebeye has made it clear that for her, a career is just as important as marriage and thus should not be mutually exclusive.

In an interview with Punch Newspaper, Amanda Ebeye talks on marriage, choices, feminism and her interest in television series.

On feminism:

“I love feminism; it paved the way for a lot of things happening now. But for feminists, I would be at home now. If a woman says she doesn’t like feminism, it means she doesn’t know the meaning. The fact that women talk freely and aspire to become presidents someday is because of what some feminists had done. Many years ago, women didn’t have the rights to certain things. I am a feminist but not an extremist. If I don’t work, I will die before my time”

On marriage and career:

“I cannot choose between my marriage and career. Being married doesn’t mean your life should stop. You get married for you and your spouse to become teammates on the same field, and you are supposed to encourage each other. Once you see signs that a man is not ready to support what you do as a woman, there is no need to continue the relationship. If a man beats you in marriage, he must have slapped you before you got married. Since you dated him for a while before marriage, you cannot say you did not see signs of violence in him but women turn their back against those things. I have always told myself that I wouldn’t stay with any man who doesn’t support what I do. My career is very important to me and I don’t joke with it. I am not a woman who stays at home and does nothing.”

On her choice of television series:

“I started acting by featuring in TV series and it seems it has been neglected in Nigeria. Everyone thinks you shouldn’t spend too much on series. When I gave a friend my cast list and the budget for it, the person advised me to shoot a feature length movie instead. The person didn’t understand why I have Bob-Manuel Udokwu and Grace Ama on my set and want to use them for a series. But I don’t see it that way because we have successful series like Game of Thrones and Empire. I have determined to give it my best. Of course, I still plan to produce a feature length movie later this year. We have spent N30m already on the series and there are still things to do, but I have other investors.”