NICK NDEDA SPEAKS ABOUT NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE AND EDGING OUT OCTOPIZZO FOR SHUGA ROLE

Popular Kenyan actor Nick Ndeda has talked about his near-death experience in South Africa when they were filming the action-drama film Jacob’s Cross in a lightning-prone area. Nick played a guest role as Kalonzo in the Panafrican production by M-Net that attracted acting heavyweights such as Hlomla Dandala and Nigeria’s Bankole Omotoso.

“I almost died. We were shooting a scene in an open field. It was about to start raining, and in that area, lightning kept striking a lot. The lightning kept getting closer and closer because we rehearsed and took a break for 40 minutes. The director warned us about it as someone was possibly going to be struck.”

Luckily, the filming went on well, and the lighting played a part in the success of the series as they were shooting an episode that required them to put on panic-stricken acts. “The cool thing about that scene is that we were shooting a scene where Jacob and I were being chased by the cops, and then we got arrested. So, we were scared to death. But the fear in our eyes was not acting. We were so scared, but it looked good on camera. I loved it.”

Ndeda all spoke about landing a role of Angelo in the MTV Base series Shuga, Nick stated that he learned about it through his model friend while studying at USIU. One of the judges, Anto Neosoul, who had known him through his role as King in the 2010 drama series Higher Learning, helped him secure a chance to audition despite being absent from the audition shortlist.

He was successful and passed four auditions amongst over 800 hopefuls. He ended up in the finals with musician Octopizzo, and the last audition was about rapping. People were introspective about the advantage that Octopizzo had by the fact of being a career rapper, but he appeared before judges, among them Lupita Nyong’o, and he impressed them, disapproving of the naysayers who had looked down upon him because he was never a musician.

“I rapped, and Lupita got up and was amazed by my rapping skills. I wrote and recorded the song the night before the audition. I landed the role two days after the audition.” Nick played a lead role in episodes 5 and 6 of Shuga 2: Love, Sex & Money from September 2011 to February 2012.