Meet Gladys Oyenbot, Actress & Producer Known For Roles in The Girl in the Yellow Jumper & Queen of Katwe

Gladys Oyenbot is also known as Oyenbot. She is an actress and producer for theatre and television in Uganda. She has also featured in some of the most prominent movies of the region, such as Queen of Katwe, The Girl in the Yellow Jumper, Kyenvu, and others, and is one of the outstanding actresses we should watch out for.

We had a chat with her, and she shared a side of herself that we didn’t know about and some advice to any of those that want to join the film industry:

What’s your back story?

Well… When I started as a dancer for a church group called Icons For Christ (I4C) and as a performer with the acclaimed International Watoto Children’s Choir, when I resigned, I dived fully into acting as a free-lancer.

Why film?

I not only do film, I do various projects outside of television. For instance, I produce for both film and theatre, work for Tebere Arts Foundation, which majors in theatrical performance, and teach children and youth behaviour change and development, so the screen is just the face.

How long have you been at it?

I’ve been acting for about ten years, and that’s a decade.

What other movies or productions have you have been a part of?

Mpeke Town, Yat Madit, Kafacoh, Black Glove, and Vanilla

Who are your favourite actors, both internationally and locally?

Cate Blanchette, Tatiana Maslany, Sophia Okonedo, Viola Davis, Thandiwe Newton, and Thuso Mbedu, among so many more. These women are phenomenal. Their portrayal or interpretation of characters is mind-blowing. I am amazed at how they get lost in “serving and giving” to the characters without shame or limitation. They are the epitome of brilliance.

Locally, my favourite is an actress by the name of Nasassi Hawart. She’s amazing and full of potential to blow up this nation and beyond if she keeps polishing her craft.

What inspires you?

A lot of things inspires me in life. First of all, people, how people behave, the different personalities people have, how their behaviour changes from this to that, their temperament and habits in life inspire me a lot. That’s when I get the urge to get a script and put a lot into it to bring out the best role I have been given.

The other thing that inspires me is when I watch movies. Sometimes I watch a movie, and I think, “Wow!” People do this when they watch a character and think, “This particular character has resonated with me.” If an actor can act like this and portray a character that appears to be difficult and make it very realistic, it means it’s easy to achieve. So when I watch these actors on the stage, in movies, theoretical performances, or musicals, watching an actor propels me from empathy to possibility. I am able to transform something, perceive it, and change my perception of thinking. If this actor has been able to do this, then I too can do this, so those are the things that inspire me a lot.

And the other last thing I would love to say is music. Oh God! I am inspired by music. Why? Most of the time, it’s so hard to put the character together. Every character that we do get as actors has what we call a “bible,” so you have to put the character bible together. As an actress, you need to figure out who that character is, what they love, what they do, what they don’t like, what color they love, their favourite meal, how they sleep at night, all these things you need to put together.

Sometimes it’s so hard because, personally, I don’t want to give off my personality into the role I have been given. So when I listen to music, it sometimes helps me relax when I need to get into an emotional bit. I know now that I am going to shoot this scene, but then I don’t have the energy to begin.

I always tell my friends interested in films or my mentees that their first scene or appearance on the screen or stage is very important and powerful. It would be best to maximize it because that’s when you’re introducing your character or who you are to the people who don’t know you.

Sometimes it’s so hard because the nerves are there, and getting through the emotional bit is hard. So, personally, I listen to music. I have an iPod full of different kinds of music that put me in that emotional zone to start. So those are the three things I’ve put out there that I know inspire me and are readily available to me, but there are others, such as reading books and other activities. But these ones are the most inspirational things.

You featured in Queen of Katwe, Kyenvu etc. Kindly tell me how you landed these roles?

It’s quite a long story. For all these three movies, the girl I came highly recommended to the production, and that’s how I came to get the roles. However, I will start with the girl in the yellow jumper. Loukman Ali reached out to me after he had shot the teaser that he wanted an actress to play, and we talked on the phone, deciding to link up and discuss more on the role he wanted me to play because I had come highly recommended. Before I knew it, I had a contract to sign and boom, I was in The Girl in the Yellow Jumper.

I auditioned as an actor when they called out for actors and actresses, and they were very specific. I think they wanted someone dark-skinned, looking at the nature of the film. However, I did not qualify and moved on to my day-to-day life because by then, I was rehearsing for stage performance and I was the lead. The beauty of it was that my co-actor, one of the actors that I look up to in Uganda, Phillip Luswata, approached me, telling me that they had received an email that Queen of Katwe was looking for stand-ins for particular A-list actors. I asked what a stand in meant.

He explained, and I was like, “Okay.”

So he asked for my height, and I told him I was 5’4 or 5’5, I wasn’t sure, and he said I think you could pass it, and he forwarded my name to see what happened. Before I knew it, I was being called to go to Speke Resort Munyonyo for an interview. They kept asking me if I could still stay back for a few minutes and I was cool with it. This was because they wanted the Director of Photography (DOP) Sean Bobbitt to look at my complexion and see if I fit the person I was going to stand in for, but during the conversation with one of the producers who was interviewing me, she was very specific because they wanted someone really dark-skinned and that’s when I got to understand that they wanted me to be Lupita N’yongo’s stand-in.

That’s when I understood that they wanted us to stand together side by side to see if we had the same colour, complexion and height for the production team to have the vision they wanted for the film. I guess I was the right person because they got back to me and said I had qualified to be a stand-in, and that’s how I became part of Queen of Katwe but as a stand-in or crew person. And one time, as we were shooting, I heard the director say, “Please call me Oyenbot. I want to see her. Let her come here right now.” I had actually gone to pick apples because it was like break time for me because the A-list was acting, so I had to go sneak out and get apples. That’s when the costume lady came in and told me I had been called by the Director, Mira Nair, to be dressed up. You’re going to act, and I was like, but how?

So yeah, before I knew it, I was dressed up in my costume and got a role just like that but was initially told to do a double. It’s quite a long story, but before I knew it, at the end of the whole production of Queen of Katwe, I ended up acting, and the role I played lasted less than a minute. I was a shopkeeper or attendant, where Lupita comes and buys paraffin from my shop, so that’s how I landed acting in Queen of Katwe.

For Kyenvu, I also came highly recommended, but Kemiyondo Coutinho is a very good friend of mine and inspires me a lot. So while she was abroad, we used to communicate a lot, and she was like, “Yo, I am writing this script, I have this project, this and all that,” but whenever she would be done, she would send me some of her scripts and I would go through them. But for this particular one, Kyenvu, she called me and said she would love for me to produce, so I did not participate as an actor, but I was a producer and production manager.

So that’s how everything fell into place, but I came highly recommended for these three projects.

Share your experience on your roles in Queen of Katwe and Kyenvu.

I had a beautiful experience. That’s all I can say. I didn’t know from rejection that something beautiful would come and work on the same project. I was rejected first of all as an actor when I auditioned, and before I knew it, I got on the project as a stand-in for a double and as an actress, which is something I was auditioning for and dreaming of and desiring to be. But the whole experience of the production taking place was a beautiful experience. I had never been on a very big and international project before like that. I once wanted to, and that was the Last King of Scotland, but this was the first big project I became part of. Having to see how many crew people were on set, having to move from one location to the other, I had never been on a big project like that before. That alone was an amazing and beautiful experience for me. I would take notes on everything, study and get to see people, and there were many people on set. There was nothing like limitation and luck on that set; everything seemed to be possible under the sun, it would be gotten, and I was thinking, Wow!

So that experience alone made me fall even more in love with acting, and I was like, Yo! That means I haven’t experienced anything at all. I haven’t experienced anything, yet it felt like they had not reached their standard. For me, while I was looking at the whole project in progress, I was thinking, “These guys are so professional for them, they are looking at me like, “Waah, Nah!” We have never been this unprofessional in life because, looking at the nature of the situation, certain things that are required to be on set were not there because of the nature of our country. Certain things could not be got, but they always had to find a way to make sure it happened. For example, actors are always in caravans. We don’t have caravans in Uganda, so they had to buy buses and empty seats and create a self-contained room for actors to isolate themselves. So that’s why I am saying anything was possible on that set, and that was my experience with Queen of Katwe.

However, my experience with Kyenvu was also beautiful because there was always something to learn, be it good or bad. For Kyenvu, it’s a short film. We shot for three days, but I think what stood out for me the most was Kemiyondo’s determination to make this movie happen. Because things just went wrong on the first day of shooting this movie. Our first site of location and our first scene in a particular location were asked to vacate. Some big person happened to be driving by and was like, “What are these kids doing here? What’s happening?” So police had to come in and ask us to leave the premises, and we were thinking, “Wow!” Which also spoils the film because when someone has written a script, they have a vision for the film and when something like that happens, you’re like, what are we going to do? Yet we had organized that shooting the film had to be done in three days. If we are to push it further, it’s more costly and presents other challenges.

As a producer and stage manager, it was quite challenging. Still, whenever I would look at Kemiyondo with her spirit and determination to make this work, we had to find another location within Bukasa Munyonyo. Then we shot that scene, and actually, that scene came out so beautifully that if we had stayed in the first location we had in mind, it wouldn’t have come out that way. And then on the second day, the makeup artist did not show up, and the actress and writer, Kemiyondo, had to do the makeup by herself because things had to happen, and on the third day, I think the laptop froze and the cards, eh. There’s a lot that just happened, but that does not take away the fact that it was a wonderful set.

Because the actors and actresses were so happy very supportive, people engaged with one another, and there was nothing like disrespecting people. Even when the footage got lost, I remember, it was one of the crew members who was like, “I know someone who can discover this footage, and on the third day, it rained.” On the day we had to shoot the most important scene, some actors could not come, but then things had to happen. So that’s how beautiful these sets were. For me, when such challenges happen and then at the end you look at your product and the result and see how amazing and beautiful the film is, you feel like anything is possible.

Now that The Girl in the Yellow Jumper is available on Netflix, what are your thoughts, what are your thoughts?

Hmm! In all honesty, it felt great because now I realize that our work or craft is being recognized and acknowledged beyond this country and Africa, so it scares me more than just being grateful because now I feel like the world is watching. There have always been watching, but now they are really watching, but so much of Africa or East Africa.

Wait a minute? There are other creative actors and filmmakers in different countries in East Africa and elsewhere, not only in West and South Africa! It has made me realize that I need to up my game, start being more creative and stretch my thinking and creativity, have to work out and basically try to be the best, not just be fwaa… No, because this is an opportunity. You don’t know when someone might reach out and want your services to be in a particular movie because of this opportunity that happened.

I know it’s going to open doors not only for me, but for the rest of the actors and actresses, filmmakers, and producers in Uganda. Already I see Uganda itself is going higher, not only in the film industry but also in the music industry. It feels like it’s our time, and for me, I have been saying it’s time for Uganda and East Africa to be out there. We have to dust up, tighten our loose ends, polish our craft, and make sure we present ourselves professionally to the world so that they don’t regret working with us.

What’s your take on where Uganda’s film industry is headed?

 I think the Ugandan film industry is headed for the Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys looking at how some of the people in the entertainment industry, both in film and music, are being recognized and acknowledged for their hard work. It’s looking good and promising regardless of its unending challenges.

Any advice you would give to someone trying to break into the film industry.

First of all, one should not forge their way into the business. It doesn’t work like that. There are steps or guidelines to follow. One should go study acting, attend acting workshops, or have an acting coach if one is serious, because the amount of rejection is more than the “Yeses” and that can be really depressing. Because the challenges are quite a lot, you know, the fame, lack of management/acting agencies, unemployment, underpayment, sexual harassment, etc.

There’s just too much, so one needs to go back to the basics of self-discovery, building a foundation to stand on, knowing who they are, what they want in life, how far they are willing to go, and so forth. You need to have a thick skin, have a counsellor or therapist if need be, because depression alone is real and having to take off these roles we play over and over is no joke.

However, on the brighter side, it’s a good arena to play any character or person you have always wanted to. It pays really well if you land on a good-paying project. It’s fun too, and you get to meet new people.

Prospects for 2022

I’m just taking time off to relax, recover mentally and physically from previous projects that drained me, and continue working on my craft before diving into another role.

satisfashionug@gmail.com