Hollywood star Edi Gathegi’s dream to take Kenya places
Edi Gathegi.
Edi Gathegi, one of Hollywood’s most successful actors of Kenyan origin, is in the country and wants to score big.
Edi landed on Monday morning, accompanied by his wife, Romanian model and dancer Adriana Marinescu.
He is now looking to explore opportunities to expand training in the creative arts and leveraging the Kenyan diaspora – including the African Americans – to increase tourism, trade and development with different stakeholders.
Edi is famous for his roles as Laurent in the films “Twilight” and the sequel “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”, Darwin in “X-Men: First Class”, Matias Solomon in TV series “The Blacklist”, and the “The Blacklist: Redemption”, Bill Pickett in Jay Z’s “The Harder They Fall” alongside Idris Elba and Jonathan Majors, and is also in the third season of fictional space-race series “For All Mankind” (2022) as Dev Ayesa.
He has hit the ground running, meeting among others Andrew White, Creative Village Africa owner and The GoDown Arts Centre’s Joy Mboya at Sankara Hotel’s Graze Steakhouse on Tuesday, before a meeting with IMG Kenya’s CEO Peter Gacheru and Linton’s Beauty World founder Joyce Gikunda at Skynest Residences’ Slate - Kitchen & Bar on Wednesday.
“The creative industry’s an area he’s obviously passionate about. When we talk about capacity building, we’re looking at how people acquire the skillset necessary to be competitive in the global film market and how we make Kenya competitive in the same,” says Nathan Gathegi, Edi’s Kenyan-based brother who is a creative director and marketing consultant and who will be managing many of these projects in Kenya.
Nathan says they are also looking at how to communicate Kenya’s value proposition as a global tourist destination.
In that aspect, they want to explore cultural assets like film and music festivals and other events that could be used to attract visitors from all over the world to Kenya.
“We don’t have like a Sundance Film Festival or big art exhibitions. In the discussions, we’re looking at how to create these products. We are talking to stakeholders and then engaging our networks to further those conversations,” Nathan told the Saturday Nation.
“If we get competent people in the creative sector, those are the ones who can help establish these assets that people will visit Kenya to consume, observe and to participate in.”
Edi also met Kenya Film Commission Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Owase, to discuss using his platform to encourage more filming in Kenya.
“The questions we are asking the market are important. Where are we in terms of tech; incentivising productions to be done locally, as opposed to being shipped out? How can we create a framework to explore private-public partnerships in creating content that we can export to the global market? How are people going to get enough money to produce films?” he asked.
Edi will also have the first screening of his own film in Kenya this coming week.
“Princess Of The Rowe”, a 2019 film Edi directed and starred in, won seven awards, including Best Actor and Best Film at Columbus International Film & Video Festival, BronzeLens Film Festival, Atlanta, and Las Vegas International Film & Screenplay Festival.
The film also had Morgan Freeman as one of its executive producers and is the inspiring tale of a runaway foster child who will stop at nothing to live with the only family she knows – her homeless, mentally-ill veteran father who lives on the streets of Los Angeles’ skid row (skid road is an impoverished area).
More announcements will be made about the date and venue later in the week.
Edi and his wife are in the country to also visit his family, especially his father, after they lost their mother to illness last year.
Edi was born in Eastlands, Nairobi, on March 10, 1979.
One of three children, the Gathegi family moved to the United States when Edi was young and settled in Albany, California.
He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he played basketball until a knee injury ended his career.
The injury pushed Edi into taking acting classes. He later enrolled for New York University’s graduate acting programme at Tisch School of the Arts where he graduated in 2005.
Edi then began his career in theatre. His stage credits include “Two Trains Running” at the Old Globe Theatre, “As You Like It”, “Twelfth Night”, “Othello”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “Cyrano de Bergerac”.
Modelled after William Shakespeare’s Old Globe in London, the Old Globe Theatre was built in 1935 for the presentation of abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays as part of the California Pacific International Exposition in San Diego.
His first professional movie role was that of the Haitian Cabbie in the 2006 film “Crank”.
In 2007, he had a recurring role as Mormon intern Dr Jeffrey Cole in the television medical drama “House”.
His character was often mocked for his religious beliefs by Dr House (played by Hugh Laurie) – an atheist.
Edi played Ronald Dacey, a Haitian druglord whose banker used his laundered money to invest in an idea centred on digital currency in a series called “StartUp”.
A crooked FBI agent will go to any length to take them down.
The series ran from 2016 to 2018, and he would appear in 30 episodes alongside Adam Brody and Martin Freeman.
In an interview with Lifestyle in 2018, Edi said: “When I was graduating from school, I went on IMDB (an online movie website) to find out who my favourite actors’ agents were, and I remember saying ‘I want Sam Jackson’s agent to represent me’ because he works the most, he’s always working and I want to work all the time.”
“Eight years later, I was doing a play in Los Angeles. Sam Jackson’s agent was in the audience and she signed me. I met him at a party just before I came to Kenya and it turns out he has been watching my work. We hugged and said ‘let’s stay in touch’,”
In 2021, Edi signed with Inspire Entertainment for management representation.
Talents managed by the company include Anthony Mackie from Avengers and “Falcon And The winter Soldier”, Oscar Isaac (Star Wars, Dune and “Moon Knight”), and Lela Loren from 50 Cent’s “Power” series.
