Martha Ankomah - Good girl never gone bad
As one whose supposed sensuality has become a matter of public interest, the actress must have a way of coping with the often spicy rumous that characterise the lives of people in entertainment.
Martha says she’s grown a tough skin for rumous. “People say a whole lot of things about you as an actress...people say things they don’t even know about you. Look at me, I went to Labone Secondary School but someone claimed that I attended Achimota and that I was her classmate. One time, another person also said that I lived at East Legon but that is not true”, she disclosed.
The actress continued that in most cases, it was almost impossible to deny many of these spiced-up tales in the public domain. So she’s had to let them pass like water under a bridge. “You hear a lot of things, but you can’t defend it, some maybe you might but is it even necessary? You just have to move on with your life…as far as you’re ok with God, you’re ok in life” she stated.
When I asked why she had often been cast for sizzling and sometimes sexually explicit roles, she responded “I don’t play just one role…I play many different roles, but I believe that maybe the producers or the directors I work with think I’m good in a particular role so they often give me those roles”.
Being versatile is a talent that most actors must possess in order to excel. Martha says she loves to play challenging roles, and that the most challenging role she played was in a movie titled ‘The Bed of Roses’ where she featured as a person who was bed ridden and with a deformity.
“It was very challenging to look like that sick type…from the beginning it wasn’t challenging, but getting to look like that sick character twisting her mouth and looking awkward was very challenging. I had to keep that look for over six hours, and if I’m working with an actor who doesn’t get her lines, it means we have to do many re-takes”, Martha said.
Talking about her journey to stardom, the actress said “it’s not been easy, but God has been wonderful and I thank God for what he’s doing in my life. I started from church as a kid acting at Sunday school, and moved to stage acting from ‘Fun World’ in 1994 or 1995 thereabouts.
Then when I got to J.S.S., I did Theater Performance for Schools (TPS). We used to do stage performances for the Secondary Schools to come and watch us. Then I did a stage drama with ‘Abibigroma’ at Alliance Francaise entitled ‘The Innocent’…I played the lead role and a director called George Bosompim saw me and gave me a role in the TV series ‘All That Glitters’.
So from stage performances I went into tv series”. Martha’s stint in mainstream television included roles in: Sun City, Bosses, Where Is Your Mobile and Fortune Island. After her brush with television, the actress auditioned for a movie role and landed a minor role in a movie.
Today, actress Martha Ankomah has joined the league of top actresses but reveals it’s been a long journey. “It’s not easy…sometimes they call you for scripts and expect you to meet them in their hotel rooms and all that. But I’m telling you this; if any aspiring actor or actress is reading what I’m saying right now you don’t need to pick up a script in a hotel room or at odd hours. Nobody can make you a star apart from God”
Martha has taken up full time acting since graduating from university as a Business Administration major, and completing her national service.
On a personal level, Martha described herself as “a very good Christian who loves to go to church a lot if she’s not acting. I’m very simple and humble”.
The actress, who is also a firm believer of gender equality, says “for the gender equality issue, I think it’s right for women to fight to get whatever they want, but it doesn’t mean that because you’re fighting to get to where a man is you should be disrespectful or act in a way that is not right. We should encourage women in our country especially from where we’re coming from as Ghanaians”.
Story by Rudolph H. Asumda/Graphic Showbiz
