In mid 2000 she was discovered by James Falkland, then director of Phoenix Players, the only repertory theatre company of its kind in East Africa. Phoenix Players awarded her the prestigious KWAL scholarship, an intensive two – year internship program. During her time at Phoenix Players, she appeared in many plays including the musical, Once on This Island, Othello, Merchant of Venice, Servant of Two Masters, Kidnap Game and Lion and the Jewel to name but a few. Lizz then ventured into TV and film, playing the lead character Nancy, in the TV series Makutano Junction which aired all across Africa on MNET’s Africa Magic Channel and the lead character Dr. Salma in Kenya’s first medical drama Saints.

Starring in her first feature, she played the role of a lawyer in the critically acclaimed film Behind Closed Doors. Lizz then went on tour through South Africa, Mozambique and Kenya with Seok Ho Lee’s play ‘Sara Bartmaan and the four Karmas’. She featured in the German film ‘Die Winterreise’ and in the Finnish short film ‘Burungo’.

In 2008, Lizz was held up as a role model by Unilever East Africa’s Charity campaign ‘Professionals make Professionals’ that encouraged young girls to stay in school and work hard. Her big break was getting cast as fun loving series regular ‘Tare Duke” in Season 4 and 5 of MNET Africa’s Soap Opera “Tinsel” which airs all across Africa. She is signed on to shoot “Pearls Of Africa” set for release in 2013.

There were a few highlights of my trip, one of them being that I got engaged, my beau proposed, in such a cool way, always the film maker.. He made a James Bond type short film and the mission was a video of him proposing.. Say it with me, awwwwwww… I was so touched, dude got moves.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a film.. The coincidences that happen are too surreal to be considered normal life. Or maybe drama just has my number.. Take for instance today,

• 8.00am: Woke up in the morning, not really excited about leaving Greece, no surprise there.
• 8.30am: We decide to call Alitalia to find out what time check  in closes, Thessaloniki office number out of service.
• 8.32am: Call Athens office, call diverted to voicemail, offices open at 9am.
• 9.00am: Call Athens office, discover my flight to Rome delayed for two hours, meaning i would miss my connection to Lagos from Rome. Next flight to Lagos is two days later so if I miss this flight It’s safe to assume Tinsel scheduling department would kill me..
• 9.05am: Jump in the shower to get ready to leave as the customer service agent advises us to go the airport and figure out our next move.
• 9.30am: Leave for airport.
• 10.10am: Alitalia office are looking into flying me to Athens on the Olympic flight scheduled to depart at 11.30am so I can get on 13.05am service to Rome. Agent informs me if Olympic flight out of Thessaloniki delays even for five minutes she will not let me get on it.
• 10.30am:  Check into Olympic flight
• 11.25am: aircraft leaves the gate
• 12.30pm: arrive in Athens, the Aircraft not parked at a bridge so need to use the bus, biting my nails down to a quick. (T- 35min)
• 12.40pm: make it to the check in counter and discover Rome flight delayed by 20min, not only is there a God but He loves me. New departure time 13.20pm Ground staff tells me to wait because there is a problem checking me into my onward flight.
• 12.52pm: boarding passes issued, she informs me that once I get to Rome I need to run straight to the boarding gate as I have very little connection time – here we go again.

Anyhu, so I am writing this on the plane on my way back to Lagos to continue work on Tinsel. (yeah i made it on board, barely) Just got a text telling me how many scenes I have to do tomorrow, and my 6am call time. Let me just say it’s going to be a long day. Good thing I followed Oprah’s advice to do what I love and I’ll never have to work a day in my life.

We decided to make our way to the location anyway, hoping the rain would subside. On the drive there, we went up a winding road and there were many cars parked along the way, it turned out to be prime hunting ground.  One of the cars was the same red truck that was used in the making of the movie ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ I was scarrrrrrrred!

We eventually got to the location, a beautiful rocky path deep in the mountain. The rain still hadn’t stopped. We eventually couldn’t shoot cause of the rain, which instead of subsiding had increased to unmanageable levels. The weather has messed up productions all over the world, why should ours  deserve special treatment?

We quickly arranged to do a scene that was scheduled for the following day in a coffee shop, we had to call all of Director Alexandros’ Aunts and Uncles that had agreed to feature in the movie as extras.. (remember i said the town of Maronia in the movie is meant to be inhabited by old people) there was no one younger than 70 years and they all came, it really touched my heart to see them trudging in one by one, talk about support. I felt like I was doing a scene out of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ (a separate story on that coming up *wink*) getting to meet most of Alexandros’ family at once was a little daunting. Though he did go through the same thing with my family back in Kenya when I invited him to my cousin’s graduation.

Next scene of the day was in a Vineyard.. Hmmmm, so anyway, we were meant to be tasting wine, now the owners of the vineyard were very proud of their wine so they were serving us real wine. Now anyone who has been on a film set before knows how many times you have to do a scene over and over again. Imagine taking a sip of real wine 10 times.. (which is why most movie sets use fake wine) Alexandros had very happy actors on his hands but we held it together, we had to.

The wine helped us with the cold though, it was freezing, it could have been 0 degrees easy. October is not the best time to be in Greece, the weather is normally quite chilly and rainy, more so Maronia which is situated quite near Bulgaria.. We managed to shoot quite a few scenes that day most of which were on day 2 of the schedule. As long as we were shooting and not wasting time standing around. I don’t think anyone minded.

Day two went off mostly without a hitch except we were a bit slow, the weather was almost too perfect, not a cloud in the sky. We had a celebrity on set.. A retired famous Greek singer who lives in Maronia, agreed to come on board an be our ‘Oby one kanoby’ he was such a good sport.. Took loads of pictures, 21st century autograph.. will share them with you soon..  We had a separate scene with a hunter, this really lovely guy but he really looked foreboding and I was very ‘apoplectic’ (I once saw this word as a stage direction on a show I was shooting, “out on Troy looking apoplectic”)

The dramatic award of day two goes to our lovely in-house pooch, this lovely dog that bounds up to us every single time we come home. Today we were shooting within the compound and the lovely thing kept getting into shot, because she didn’t know better, after all every time we got out of the car she would run up to us and proceed to jump around us. Someone had the bright idea to lock her up in the kitchen. You don’t want to know what she did to our lovely kitchen.. To say it was like a tornado went through it would be an understatement…

At the end of the day we attempted to do a scene against a setting sun, this would have worked as a one shot, only that the sun set before we could get a satisfactory take.. I guess we can always get it on Day three.

I am back at base camp, satisfied, exhausted but happy to be in Greece, a Country that has easily become my second home…

strutting my stuff on the red carpet

As soon as I landed I went straight into rehearsal, after all I had to meet the guy I was to fall in love with considering we were starting to shoot first thing Monday morning. Scope him out a little to see if he could be my type. Met with the actors and the director, spent most of the three hours with them getting to know the characters.. He was alright.

After rehearsing again Sunday with my ‘Greek god’ it was time for the camera to start rolling. Keep in mind that the cast and crew had been at it for two weeks already, the whole movie is being shot over three weeks, and I am only needed on the final week..

Keep it here for news on my first day of shoot, can I just say du-ra-ma.

Kenyan actress

You could not imagine my joy when I heard our baby (film) ‘Me My Wife And Her Guru’ garnered 9 nominations in the up coming 3rd edition of the Kalasha awards… Like, when I got the news I was over the moon. The winners will be unveiled at the Kalasha Award Ceremony on Friday 23rd September at the Canivore but in the meantime please go and vote for us here if we made you laugh when you watched it, then go pick up a copy at Nakumatt Lifestyle and gift it to a friend, assuming you’ve already got a chance to watch it.

Lets support Kenyan Film, on that note Rugged Priest another Kenyan film that received many nominations is Screening at CENTURY CINEMAX PRESTIGE PLAZA, NGONG ROAD FRIDAY TO THURSDAY (16th TO 22nd SEPTEMBER 2011;10.30 am & 7.30pm)

Hey guys! I’m back, after my lovely three week break from Tinsel, (this cool show I’m working on) which I got to spend in Nairobi with family. It all started when I missed my flight to Nairobi from Lagos and had to wait three days to get on the next one.. I was so mad at myself cause all I could think of was the things I could have been doing in Nairobi, like partying, hanging out with friends and family.. So when I finally got home first thing I did was hang out with my best buddy Terryanne who does a cool blog that u can find here.

We went out to catch up over a glass of wine at Casablanca. My holiday had officially began. It turned out to be a working holiday though, because while I was home I took part in a Radio show for TWR- really fun story about immigrants, got a chance to test my British accent, which might have ended up sounding like an American one, lol, (I blame American TV) I was voicing the character of an immigration officer in Europe.

I attended interview after interview too, magazine, newspaper, blog, web tv. It was kind of fun. This part of the job I enjoy because fans get to see the real you and not the character you are playing. As actors we tend to disappear into the roles we play.. It is easy to forget who you are and get lost in the hype. All in all my holiday was pretty cool, I slept in, literally lived in Java and T-spot, my two favorite coffee hangouts. I put on a few pounds cause of all the cake I was indulging in, but that’s ok simply because they’ve been trying to fatten me up over in Lagos (I just love their fascination for plus size women)

Also while in Nairobi, a bunch of friends and I went to the MCEDO Beijing school in Mathare a charity based organization that caters to underprivileged kids from Mathare slums, we went over there to give them motivational talks and my heart just ached for the kids. It was great to see that despite all the hardship they’ve been through in the course of their young lives, they were all smiling.. And I believe it was due to what the guys who founded MCEDO have done for them, please read more of that story here.
My time in Nairobi was short, but I am hoping that the next time I come to Nairobi I will be able to go back to the school with more friends and visit this lovely bunch of survivors.

Now I’m back to work, rounder, happier, rested. Now the real work can begin…