On Straight Talk With Delia: Nollywood Actress Collette Orji Talks About Marriage & Career

Collette: laughs…Am good, thank you.

Delia:  Thanks for making out time for us.

Collette: I always have time for you and you know that. okay

Delia:  Ok, With regards to you as an actress cum wife, between your Career or Marriage, if you happens to be in a situation where you only have to chose one, tell us which one you will go for? ” Career or Marriage”

Collette:  Marriage, Yes I’ll chose Marriage

Delia: Is it a hard decision for you to make?

Collette: Not at all, Actually it was very easy. Its one of those things my ever crazy head gets hard time to think about.

Delia: Please share with us the reason you chose marriage over career.

Collette: Honestly, whenever I think about this my first thought is ,Why can’t I have both you know. I know lots of amazing couples that actually have both or should I say, it seems so from afar. well, you said chose only one, I chose marriage and here are my opinions, reasons and mindset toward my choice. Fortunately, for me, I stayed with both my parents all my life. Yes, if you had this opportunity to be with your both parents, married, living together in one house for 30 whole years, its hard not to wish and work towards something like this very strongly. Am beyond rational when it comes to this choice and I always love to defend it.

Secondly, am very family oriented.  I found out that staying away from my family issues make me insignificant and unhappy.whenever I’m having a disagreement with my brothers or parents then, God bless their souls, it totally disorients me. I barely survive when family issues arrive that I cannot fix. I crawl in my space. I want everyone at that moment to think and act like me knowing its not that way. I am truly happy when my close knitted family is together. I’ve come to realize that i want that. i really want that.

Thirdly, I love the idea of marriage, the concept of marriage, the rationality behind it, the union, the company, the twist. Marriage reminds me that “Perfection is Boring and none of us humans are perfect enough.

Again – I work thrice as hard to keep my marriage, loving, interesting, unpredictable, fighting, working through and absolute honesty. Believe me, I do. I’m wired that way. I really don’t like the lessons failure teaches. I’d love to learn more from successful stories. And that’s how hard I work also on my jobs, BUT if you say only one, career comes second.

And not to sound all loving ,marriage is legal, remarrying is legal, divorce is legal. For goodness sake,I don’t need to go through another lifetime of a career to make happy choices.I love the happiness message and to this question, this is my choice and hopefully whatever choice you make, or anything anyone else chooses, it is still right as long as happiness is attained.Whatever rocks your boat you know, meaning “whatever makes you sleep well at night”.

Delia: One last question Collette, Is this something you’ve come to realise or is this a choice you could have made five years ago? do you also think you will prefer this choice if asked this question in the next five years?

Collette :  That’s one hell of a long question…hmmm okay first things first. I’ve always been smarter than my age says so yes, I knew over twenty years ago that marriage is for me over career. Who cared about career in my mothers days anyways. now, I know better and am happy about my choices. Five years from now, who knows right? So lets say, may my convictions that brought me this far. keep me through life.

Delia: We wish you all the best and thank you for your time dear.