Don’t take acting as a full-time career - Papa Nii

Veteran Actor, Henry Harding, popularly known in showbiz as Pattington Papa Nii Papafio, has advised young actors and actresses to build other careers rather than taking acting as a full-time career.

According to him, taking movie making as a full-time career can be a negative move because it could affect the individuals when things are not going on very well for the industry.

Papa Nii who was speaking on Accra-based Class FM said “That is why I advise people that you just completed JHS, you’ve completed SHS and say I want to become an actor. You must be a little serious.

You need to have a vocation and ply it until the need arises that what you’re getting out of the acting will be able to sustain you”.

He used the opportunity to advise his younger colleagues to make it a point to save some money in order to build a solid foundation for themselves because it will be heart wrenching to come back as a pauper when you are old and wornout.

“Like footballers, like athletes, like artistes, you’re just like someone who is a banker or who is a producer or who is a presenter and as you go along the line, you need to also make sure that you’re able to improve your standard of living so that when bad

times come your way, you will be able to meander your way through because I don’t think that once you’re an actor, at every time, you should be at the beck and call of others.

You’re plying a trade and even fortunately for us, most of us were not professional actors, we had our own professions before we were acting so that when the need arises, that acting has somehow gone down or whatever, you shouldn’t be found wanting”.

“In short, once you’re on heat, you need to prepare yourself and that is what I feel. Even though I believe that what the government should also invest into it, it has not been able to do, because the government

stands to gain a lot if they would be as serious as they should be in that direction. Apart from that, whoever comes into the fray must also know what it entails.”