Lydia Forson — In love with acting

Saturday, July 17, 2010 (The Mirror Pg 31)

By Rebecca Kwei
SHE kicked into high gear as an actress only a few years ago and though some may put her fast rise as one of the nation’s well-loved on-screen personalities down to mere good luck, bubbly actress Lydia Forson ascribes her current prominent showing on the movie radar to a wholehearted pursuit of something she truly loves.
The award-winning actress, who has recently risen to the status of endorsing high-end consumer products, describes her life as one big movie which has already travelled on some memorable scenes and is set to unravel even more thrilling ones.
Movie lovers and television viewers know her from Run Baby Run, Different Shades of Blue, Scorned, The Perfect Picture and A Sting In A Tale, but she was bitten by the acting bug before those productions came along.
Though she was the Entertainment Prefect during her days at St Louis Secondary School, she didn’t fancy acting till she got to the University of Ghana, Legon, and had the opportunity to play a cameo role in the Hotel St James television series.
“I was very nervous at the beginning but settled later and totally enjoyed myself on the set. Though I was to be in only one episode, the director liked what I did and later wrote more scenes with me in mind. I ended up with more substantial screen time than I had envisaged,” she recalled.
After her stint in Hotel St James, she played a supporting role in the award-winning movie, Run Baby Run in 2006. The flick won four African Movie Academy awards and was also adjudged the Best Narrative Film at the 17th Pan African Film Festival.
Becoming more active in the movie industry, Lydia had the chance to again star in another television series, Different Shades of Blue.
It was not until she participated in the Next Movie Star reality show in Lagos, Nigeria, where she placed fourth, that she decided acting was what she wanted to do.
“I learnt a lot during the period and I firmly decided that acting was going to be my life. I was confident and did not care what anyone else thought of me. I was determined to push on.”
Lydia, who sounded very religious throughout the interview, said God has a plan for everyone and “if you put your trust and have faith in Him, you will succeed in all your endeavours.”
Her first major break was in 2008 when she played the lead role as Dea in Shirley Frimpong-Manso’s Scorned movie. Lydia said to date, Scorned remains one of her favourite movies because she loved the story line and the role she played.
“I played different characters as Dea and it was something I had always wanted to do so people could see my versatility.”
Scorned definitely brought her into the limelight and this led to her first African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) nomination as the Best Upcoming Female Actress and Joy FM’s Night with the Stars Best Actress for 2009 award.
Lydia has had offers flooding in for her to play roles in various productions. She, however, maintains that she is very particular about good quality scripts that challenge the actor and not willing to compromise on standards so did not accept most of those offers. There has been some backlash for that but she has stood her ground and will not feature in anything she is not comfortable with.
The next critically acclaimed film in which Lydia proved her versatility and validated her status as a serious actress was in the 2009 movie, The Perfect Picture. Critics have praised the film and Lydia’s dynamic performance solidified her presence in the Ghanaian movie industry.
Together with Jackie Appiah and Naa Ashorkor, she received the AMAA Best Actress in Lead Role award recently for their roles in Perfect Picture.
She played the lead role in yet another film from Shirley, A Sting In A Tale last year which was also nominated as the Best Narrative Film at the Pan African Film Festival.
It has not only been movies for Lydia. She recently took part in a play titled Vagina Monologue which she said made her fall in love with stage acting and would be doing more of that in the future.
According to Lydia, this year has been very busy for her as she is working on a lot of projects. She indicated that most of the things she is working on will be in fruition by the latter part of year adding that “Ghanaians should expect something mind blowing.”
There has been a lot of collaboration between Ghanaians and their Nigerian counterparts in the movie business and Lydia sees this as a good move.
“We are always talking about African unity. One way of achieving this is through movie collaboration. I hope in the years to come, more African countries will collaborate to make films,” she said.
She noted that the movie industry has come a long way and to revive and sustain it, there was the need for government, corporate bodies and individuals to invest in it.
Lydia is working on establishing the Free2bme Foundation — a mentorship programme to encourage unconventional and innovative thinking among the youth and inculcate in them the will to be anything but ordinary.
Born to Rev. Dr Mathias Forson of the Methodist Church and Janet Banfro, Lydia went to the United States at the age of six when her father pursued his doctoral degree. While there, she attended Wilmore Elementary School in Kentucky. The family later moved back to Ghana and she continued at the Akosombo International School through to St Louis Secondary School in Kumasi. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Information Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Lydia lights up when she talks about her family. She says her mom is her best friend and loves her brothers, Sam and Emmanuel, to bits.
She also loves dogs but unfortunately her three dogs: Tyson, Angel and Lucky died through poisoning.
She lives by Tupac Shakur’s assertion that “when my heart can beat no more, I hope that I die for a principle or a belief that I had lived for.”