You may not see it, but deep down, Monalisa Chinda Dejo-Richards, the sultry Nollywood actress, has been carrying an emotional wound that time has not succeeded in healing and that has made her 'paranoid', to use her word.

Like a volcano, it is there waiting to erupt. It took just one question on the circumstances of her father's death for Mona Lisa to break down and weep at The Sun Newspaper office where she had come as our special guest. It was a very touching scene.

Specifically, she was asked one simple question, which turned out not to be that simple: How did your father die? For minutes, she sat down there on our hot seat struggling to fight tears that easily came and distorted her facial make-up. This was no acting for the camera, which is Mona Lisa's main trade. This was a reality show of a kind - unrehearsed and unscripted. And very moving!

After some traumatic moment of silence, sadness and headshaking, she gradually regained her composure to finally reveal the dark secrets of how her father was gruesomely murdered in church two days to Christmas.
“My father was murdered,” she said bluntly and abruptly, as if dropping a bomb. “Yes, he was murdered.”

We asked her: What happened?

The enemy within, I guess.

Was he poisoned, shot, stabbed or what? Tell us as much as you can

It's too sensitive. I don't know if I want to go there. I wouldn't know what exactly went wrong. I was abroad at the time when it happened. I was told after a week plus that he had passed on. I hate to visit this area but the fact is that he was murdered on his way to see the Bishop on a Monday morning on the 23rd of December 2003. This was what I heard when I came back, although I didn't want to go into wanting to know what killed my dad and all that because I was just too distraught and too devastated at that time. He was killed when he was going to see the Bishop on that morning - very early in the morning. And he was still very alive till about 5pm on that same day, but they just killed him. They took him to the mortuary, claiming that he was dead. Apparently, they bribed the mortuary attendant and they put embalmment on him and all that. He was still warm after that time. That was all the stories I could gather as at that time. Even when they gave me the pictures of where he was injected, it was agonized feeling. He was killed in his car. They killed him; they took him somewhere and dumped the body. I don't know. It was just crazy.

Was it a business deal?

It was not a business deal. I don't know if this is being safe. It was a church thing; knighthood - conflict over knighthood in the Anglican Church. They do knighthood in the Anglican Church too just like in the Catholic Church. My father was very religious. He was a man of God - if I can use that word. My father was 66 (years) at the time he was killed. My father's death was tough on my mum. It was horrible. People in the church were always around her, trying to console her with prayers and words of faith.

Forgiveness of dad's killers

Through her experience we learnt to forgive. At some point, the killers were arrested and some of them died mysteriously on their own. After six months, we learnt to forgive. That was one of the hardest things for anyone: to look at the murderers of your father. You stare at them, they are in church and you know them but you can't do anything because of the Christian way we were all brought up. So we forgave them and we had to move on.

Of course, it was difficult to forgive. I had to forgive so that I could move on. Forgiveness is very important. It is a relief. You realise that you have forgiven somebody that has hurt you so badly and you find out that you just have to move on. You are free. The steam is off you. You are like a free bird.

As an actress, I have played the role of a wife who loses her husband. I have done it several times. It is totally devastating for a woman to lose her husband. You feel empty. You feel completely empty. There is this emptiness. There is this void. All of a sudden you become highly paranoid. I became paranoid after my father's murder. Till now, I am still struggling with it, with prayers and all that. I became very, very paranoid, I mean as in reality, not in movie.

Starting out as an actress

I actually started acting as a baby. Not from the church per se. During break time in nursery school, I would get the kids together to act. We did this mother-father acting roles. I grew up in Port Harcourt. With my emotional background, you might think I would get roles related to crying but I am not famous for crying roles in Nollywood. Instead they give me bitchy roles. I am famous for playing bitchy roles in Nollywood. Most of the time, they give me those very bad daughter, spoiled brat role.

I studied theatre arts at the University of Port Harcourt. The university did not prepare me for what I am doing now. And that's the truth. I wasn't prepared to be where I am today but I thank God. I realised that if you do not rediscover yourself, if you do not discover yourself and your God-given talent, you just keep going round and round in circles. I read theatre arts, yes, although my parents wanted me to read law. My dad wanted me to read law, my mum wanted me to read international relations, which are almost similar. And I was beginning to think: maybe this theatre arts is really not for me. But let me try it. The day my JAMB form was to be submitted, I had to stop the driver, erase the supposed course and then put theatre arts as my first choice in the University of Port Harcourt, just in case I do not meet the cut-off point in the other courses. That was how I found myself reading theatre arts. And I actually thought that after theatre arts, I would probably go into the corporate world and work in a bank. I didn't know I was going to be here today in the world of acting.

First movie

I graduated in the year 2000, though I did a couple of movies while in school. In 1996, I did my first home video, Pregnant Virgin; the story of a very strict father and mother, and she became pregnant. And then all hands started pointing towards the father because he was always particular about wanting to just cage her and all that.

When I graduated, I did a couple of movies with other artistes. It was just one leg in, one leg out. I was doing other things and trying to see if I can work in a bank but that didn't work out. I just couldn't cope with working as a banker. I worked for a couple of months at a bank and left the job. I tried trading, but things didn't work out. Then I travelled to the UK. When I travelled to the UK for a course, I met my husband for the second time. I met him and he encouraged me to come back into the movie industry. And here I am today. Continued    Source: nigeriafilms.com - Nigeria Films