In a recent interview with media personality Chude Jideonwo, the veteran said he was offered ₦50,000 for his first acting gig.
“I was sitting there with her in the parlour when somebody from Lagos came to give me a check for fifty thousand to make a film,” the Nollywood legend shared.
Fortunately for him, the paycheck came at the right time, as he had just lost his broadcasting job due to religious differences and internal issues, which he did not elaborate on during the conversation.
With the hefty sum and encouragement from his wife, Edochie was persuaded to abandon his broadcasting job as a director to pursue his passion for acting after he lost his broadcasting job.
Recalling how the conversation with his wife went, he said, “I told my wife my work was over. She hugged me, bought me a bottle of beer, and said, ‘Pete, you’ve always wanted to be an actor; the time has come.’ At that time, my salary as the director was ₦9000 per month.”
Before leaving his broadcasting job, he played the lead role of Okonkwo in a Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s best-selling novel Things Fall Apart.
Edochie won an international award for his protrayal and had the BBC fly into Nigeria to interview him for his role in the project.
Since then, he has become a Nollywood icon, with over 100 Nollywood movies and several national and international awards to his name.