I did not pursue acting at first – Genoveva Umeh
The British-Nigerian actress followed a different career path initially.
Genoveva Umeh got her big break in the Netflix series 'Blood Sisters' [Instagram/Gen0vevaumeh]
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According to the 28-year old, she had initially trained to become a lawyer, as she had studied law at the University of Surrey in England.
But after failing her first year in university, the actress started to rethink her career choice.
Umeh revealed this during a recent episode of the 'Is This Seat Taken' podcast hosted by Chinasa Anukam.
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“Studying law was my decision. However, I also realised that as a first-generation immigrant, I knew how hard my parents worked to get me into the UK," Umeh said. “So, I didn’t want to pursue a course that I just considered as a hobby. I thought acting was merely a hobby.”
Eventually, acting became more than a hobby for her. In her words, “I went from viewing acting as a hobby during my time in university, thinking that after graduation, I would come back and pursue it. But that didn’t happen until I failed my first year. Failing my first year of law was when I realised that I needed to start considering what I truly wanted to do, rather than what I felt I had to do.”
In 2018, Umeh moved to Lagos to pursue an acting career, writing and performing a one-woman stage play, HOME, which performed at Lagos Fringe Festival in Lagos, and a year later at Bloemfontein, South Africa.
She landed her first lead role in A Tune Away (2020), which earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the 2022 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Award.
Umeh's breakout performance would come in the 2022 Netflix series Blood Sisters. In the same year, she played the character Zina in Far From Home.
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