Nansi Nsue, actress: “I had no references of my color and when you don’t have that representation on television you don’t think you can do it” | Pleasures | S Fashion

Nansi Nsue (Equatorial Guinea, 35 years old) was 9 or 10 years old when he became obsessed with Clueless, the youth romantic comedy starring Alicia Silverstone. She watched it on loop on the VHS. “I took my notebook, hit pause and started writing the dialogues,” she remembers and relates via Zoom from his current home in London. The next day, he took that notebook to school and distributed the papers with her friends to act out the scenes. It is one of her anecdotes from her childhood that she gives as an example to explain that being an actress today comes from afar, although she discovered her vocation almost 10 years later. “I think if she had grown up here, in England, and they had seen what she was like as a child, what she did, they would have put me in theater or drama classes,” she says.

Born in Equatorial Guinea, she emigrated to Spain with her family when she was very small and they settled in Alicante. In that childhood and adolescence she grew up without references on screen, no one around her was dedicated to acting, art or dancing. “I didn’t have references of my color, I had my Vicenta Ndongo, of course, but she is already there; and when you don’t have that representation on television or in another medium, you don’t believe that this is something you can do. It didn’t occur to me, nor to my teachers, nor to my family, because they look at me and don’t think of an actress, they don’t think of an artist, it doesn’t enter their heads.” At 18 she went to Belfast, where her aunt lived, to study English and marketing. And there she changed everything. “Walking down the street I found a sign with the hand of the American Uncle Sam pointing at you, it was from an extra agency, I went in and a week later they contacted me for a medieval Hollywood movie (Knights, princesses and other beasts). And I went there, I saw Natalie Portman, I saw myself in that costume and I knew, my heart sank: it was what I wanted to do,” he says.

At that moment she decided that she wanted to be an actress: she was 19 years old. She signed up for an independent production agency, got her first role in a film near the British capital and decided to move there. “I left without knowing anyone, with 400 pounds in my wallet, on an adventure,” she says. For six years she did not speak a word of Spanish to lose her accent, she combined her acting studies with administration jobs in an insurance company and with the almost full-time job that comes with going from a casting to another. “I started late because I had to take more steps than others to reach the level I am at now, I invested time and money, but I enjoyed it. I don’t feel it like a sacrifice,” she says. “It is true that in this industry there is a lot of stress for everyone because it is not a secure job. Does the fact that I have done three projects now mean that I am going to do more in the future? You do not know. You must accept it from the beginning. Getting rejected is part of this industry, you do 100 castings to get one.”

Nansi has been in London for almost 15 years. She stayed because he saw that there were “many more job opportunities, compared to Spain, for people of different races.” “These are roles in which my skin color is not important, here I can be a police officer, a scientist…” She has worked in series (The Mallorca Files), shorts, small films… “In Spain I think there is still a little to see beyond skin color. But I have faith. Since I left there has been a tremendous change. But it has to be faster, we are in 2024 and it is time.” For her, personally, 2024 could be the big change. This, for example, is her first photo shoot for a magazine. It debuts in the world of promotion. Although he still cannot dedicate himself to acting alone (“I thought I could after six months of chaining shoots, but with the strike of scriptwriters and actors, here in London, everything stopped a little”), in April, after going through The Malaga Festival premieres two feature films: Hate Songs, by Alejo Levis, as the protagonist; and The jump, by Benito Zambrano, director who gave him his first opportunity in Spain in Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (2021). And, furthermore, she has a small role in the series The long shadows (which premieres on Disney+ in May), as Elena Anaya’s girlfriend.

He feels a deep connection with both films. Hate Songs focuses on the Rwandan genocide 30 years later. She plays an actress called to the radio studio that she spread and fueled the hatred in which they want to make a supposed healing recreation. “Seeing what is happening now in Gaza it is a very important film, because it tells us that we have to be critical of what we hear and read and it talks about how a society can move forward. Forgiving is very difficult, but if you talk and remember, if you deal with the trauma together you can get out, it’s about understanding and not staying stuck in resentment,” she explains. In El Salto de ella she is an immigrant waiting in Spain for the return of her husband, expelled and trying to jump the fence in Melilla. “The film tries to humanize these immigrants who would never have left their country, but without resources, or in war, what other option do you have?” She says.

Hers is also the story of a migrant. From Guinea to Alicante, from Alicante to Belfast and London. “When I arrived in London I had an impressive identity crisis, what am I? Where am I from? “I’m from Guinea, I’m from Spain… I’m pure and simple African, but I’m Spanish… and now I’m a Londoner,” she says. It comes from many parts and, little by little, perhaps they will finally see it as the advantage that it is. In an industry that is betting on diversity, Nansi Nsue is finding her place: “Right now I want to continue in London, but I would like to work more in Spain and spend more time with my mother.”