A Quote by Alek Wek

London is like my second home. I've still got friends there from school and from when I first started in the modelling business - people such as Karen Elson, Jasmine Guinness, Jade Parfitt.
I wanted to become an actor. I went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which is one of the main drama schools in London where you go when you are older. But I was doing the junior one when I was a kid. And some friends there had agents. I was fourteen and I was like, "I want an agent! It sounds awesome!" I had no idea what that was. I thought those guys looked like men in black. They were hanging around in suits all the time. So I luckily got a very good agent in London and started auditioning. And then when I was 16, I got my first film and I've been working ever since.
People like me, like Karen Elson and Soo Joo, we're a very specific woman with a very specific look. I think that's also why we last longer. There's no one else like us.
People have always assumed that I am privileged. And that has been a problem sometimes. When I first started modelling, and I was schlepping around London with no money, I found it rather irksome that people thought I had a private income when I didn't.
When I started coming on the scene, just really new into NXT, and people started seeing me, I got a lot of positive feedback from my friends, my friends back home. They were like, 'Oh, you are doing such great things for young girls,' and then it clicked in my head, like, 'Wow! I didn't know that was something I could do here.'
My favorite food from my homeland is Guinness. My second choice in Guinness. My third choice - would have to be Guinness.
I find it quite hard for me to pull off. It's so nice to have a tan and look healthy and glowing. I'd quite like to look like Karen Elson - she looks good pale. I feel like I look a bit washed out.
I wasn't in school often enough to really belong to a 'clique,' but my friends all studied hard and got pretty good grades. They were good people with self-respect. I still like to be friends with people I admire something about; I really believe that we become like the people we're surrounded by, so I choose my friends carefully!
I go home to London in between jobs, and in London, my life has nothing to do with the business. It's a family life, hanging with friends.
I really see myself as a homegirl. Wales is my first home. London is my second home - I've been there 14 years now.
I live on a plane. I like to visit London. If I had to think where I could live if not Moscow, London would be my first choice, and second would be New York. In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I'm used to four different seasons; it's difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.
When I started going to school, I started getting used to things, like the language. After that, I started adapting to school, friends, and everything. It was really difficult, to start with, but I survived.
Moving gave me confidence. I was really reclusive when I first moved. I stayed home a lot or went to shows alone. But by the second semester of my freshman year, I started making friends.
I started event managing as my first career which I started in 1989, and that was the first year when I started modelling as well, so every time I start something new it is because of an interest that I have and then that interest becomes sustainable and doable.
Modelling was not very satisfying for me. I came to London to model, and I fell in love with the theatre. I was eating yoghurt every day so that I had the money to go to the theatre. I saw everything. It's still my dream to be on stage in London.
I didn't mean to interupt you if you were looking for your friends Miss--' 'Callihan,' but you can call my Jasmine. Or Jas.' Or Snookums. Honeybunch. Hotsie Totsie Cowgirl. My Little-- 'It's nice to meet you Jasmine, I'm Jack.
My dad is a minister and my mum is a worker with the less fortunate and the disabled. They're Nigerian natives. Their first language is Yoruba, and their second language is English. My mum and dad moved to London when they had my eldest sister. They started a life in London as immigrants, and they built up from there. They're no actors in my family, but there are definitely animated black people in my family.
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