This is a success story of Celestine ‘Selina’ Gachuhi.
At the age of 22, she is the face of one of the most followed Kenyan telenovelas, Selina. Unknown to many Celestine Gachuhi is also a singer, a model and a beautician. However, she has put to a halt the latter professions to concentrate on her acting career.
In an exclusive interview with a local publisher, she terms her journey in film and television as a short one, embroidered with success and fulfilment. She states that it all started in high school where she participated in drama festivals. However, this would only last two years, in her form one and two since her school, Ole Tipis High School, did not allow students to participate in co-curriculum activities past form two.
Her dream glowed internally during her last two years in high school and nothing could snuff it out. The only way to quench it was to get back on stage.
After her form four, she joined acting groups that staged set books in secondary schools. Her first was Jicho Four Productions where her star continued shining.
However, as fate could have it, her stay at Jicho Four was short-lived. Another group, Pace Theatres, called Jicho Four asking for a female character.
“The description fitted me. I rehearsed for two weeks before appearing on stage. My first show was scaring, but I managed. By the fifth show, I had gained confidence and no one could notice that I was new,” she says.
She stayed at Pace Theatres for at least six months, staging set books. At the beginning of 2015, she wanted to further her education but funds were inadequate. What she earned from staging set books was also not sufficient. She quit stage and decided to do something else that could earn her something.
Celestine Gachuhi cannot Kiss, Marry or Kill any of her co-stars
“I got employed in a salon and managed to work for five months. Despite, the little income I was generating, I still managed to get by owing to the fact that I was not paying rent,” explains Ms Gachuhi.
Despite being a guru in the job, as she puts it, she continued to go for auditions. She loved acting; hence, she could not let the dream sublime in thin air.
Stars of Selina, Pascal Tokodi and Celestine Gachuhi serenade each other
Her efforts bore fruits when one day, while still in the salon, she received a call inviting her for a role. She was to do skits as well as motivational speaking in schools. The job was to start immediately, and she was to travel the same night.
She took up the job, for she loved it. She rehearsed her lines and bonded with other characters while on the journey. It was not all in vain. This was her first time to meet established actors like Papa Shirandula, Machachari’s Mama Mercy and Mama Stella. It was like a dream come true for her, and hope for greater things to come. They helped her learn a lot in the film industry during the time they worked together.
In November 2015, thanks to a friend she had met during the auditions, she made her debut in TV. She was given a role (Waceke) in a Gikuyu play, Gwa Cibu (At the chief’s). The play went for two episodes before she later landed another supporting role in another play by the same production house (Ken TV). She played Stess in the play Uriru wa wendo(Wonders of love).
During this play is when she heard about Selina, but she ignored since she had a role she liked.
“The first time I ignored. The second time, one of my cousins tagged me but I ignored. The third time, a friend we had worked with in Uriru called me and told me that they had done auditions but they had not found Selina. I decided to give it a try,” explains Ms Gachuhi.
“I did not want to tell the director that I was going for auditions, but at the same time, I didn’t want to lie. I just told him that I had something important to attend to.”
Interestingly, she was the character the crew was looking for. She got the role of Selina; a naïve village girl without a mother and who gets mistreated by her stepmother. Coincidentally, Ms Gachuhi’s mother passed on in 2006 and she has undergone a lot in the hands of her stepmother. She easily identified with the role since it was reflecting her life experiences.
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