TIPTOPSTARS

At a budding age of 23, she has already covered a reasonable distance in the art she knows best – acting. Yet, Stephanie Maa still nurses huge ambitions of propelling higher into a brighter future that speaks more than ordinary imagination. That literally explains why the Houston, Texas-based Cameroonian actress explores her performing arts skills to the fullest with the sole intention of producing marketable results. Such results are what Ekei, an Akim Macauley (co-produced by Elian Mambo and Kang Quintus) film currently being shot in Maryland, USA and six other movies have reaped from young actress.

“I have this propensity of transforming into any personality the script demands me to with no difficulty,” Stephanie told this writer on Afrikka Radio a couple of days ago. Also explaining her strengths, the up-and-coming actress said she does not choose roles and have no particular direction to which her heart beats – rather she is volatile and that’s what charms her producers and directors.

Relatively young on the movie set, Stephanie who told us she embraced acting at the age of 16 has made herself an artist who matters, not only in her country’s film industry, but beyond. It is therefore not by chance that she has been interlocutor to some of Africa’s finest actors including Desmond Elliot, Ramsey Nouah, Van Vicker and most recently John Dumelo. “I have worked with several renowned African actors but I must confess, John is the one I would love to work with again and again,” Stephanie told African Cocktail, the fast-growing Pan-African show on Ohio’s Afrikka Radio hosted by Ernest Kanjo.

If these frontline actors and others have acknowledged the 23-year-old’s acting prowess, the media have not been indifferent. Recently, a Nigeria online entertainment portal which has certainly been trailing Stephanie, rated her within the first five most popular Cameroonian actresses. “I was surprised but felt really humbled by that classification,” she told us. Stephanie went further: “That ranking is an encouragement and I think I won’t relent my efforts in improving on my art.”

But where did this love for acting come from? “I think I was born to act,” Stephanie, born and bred in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde revealed. “From childhood, I have been acting and I think it is just a passion, I love it,” she added. When she spoke about Nollywood’s Genevieve Nnaji, one could easily suggest the latter formed part of Stephanie’s inspiration. “I yearn to work with her, Genevieve Nnaji is my idol in the art,” she recounted.

Stephanie, a final year Nursing student, also reading Engineering regrets not having been able to shoot on a location in her native Cameroon. “I however nurse plans of travelling there at the close of this year and that will be a golden opportunity to shoot in my beloved country,” she told African Cocktail.

Also a model and singer, Staphanie Maa who hails from the Bassa tribe (her mother is Bakossi – a tribe in the South West region of Cameroon) in the Littoral region of Cameroon the talented actress urges potential viewers to go for Ekei as soon as the movie is released, for as she puts it, “I’ve been in her best in this very challenging production.”