The category of a mainstreamer is not an everyday affiliation given to regular stars in Gollywood, who have at least more than a single movie premiered and seen on television. It requires consistency in the game close to a decade. It also comes with the responsibility of having your name remembered easily when recognized actors, who flood award seasons with their stellar performances are called to stand up. Duly noting the requirements of a mainstreamer in Gollywood, which in other terms can be referred to as an icon, the two-time cover girl of Glitz Africa Magazine, Jackie Appiah is a solid recipient that can never go unnoticed.
Her early-life career was actively cemented with soap opera appearances counting from ‘Tentacles’, ‘Things We Do for Love’, ‘Sun City’ and others. Although she was lauded as one of the best young actors at the time, her fame in cinema was shaky, until she starred in the Venus Film produced film ‘Mummy’s Daughter’ in 2006, where she played the role of Princess, and as her bio reads Jackie recalls that role to be her best as at that time, “I loved how I acted and I was happy with the role I played.”
The following year in 2007, Jackie bolstered her young career with an Africa Movie Academy Award best supporting actress win, making her the first Ghanaian actress to score an AMAA title. Fast-forward to 2010, she won her second AMAA for best actress in the lead role with the Shirley Frimpong-Manso franchise ‘The Perfect Picture’, winning alongside her colleague lead actors Lydia Forson and Naa Ashorkor Mensah-Doku.
After the many disk produced films that put Gollywood shoulder-to-shoulder with Nollywood, the movie industry suffered a virtual shut-down beginning 2013, and as a result many A-listers including Yvonne Okoro, Yvonne Nelson and Nadia Buari, made a choice to produce their own films in order to keep themselves present, while taking their career to another level. From that period to date, Jackie has avoided coming up with her own produced film, and yet still managed to stay relevant starring in award-winning films across the continent.
In the 2013 period where many were out of business, Jackie enveloped her enviable acting resume by bringing home the first Africa Magic Viewer’s Choice Award win for best actress in a lead role drama, beating ‘Lion Heart’ director Genevieve Nnaji to it. The 2013 Ghana Movie Awards also scored the ‘The King is Mine’ actress with her second lead role actress win, following the maiden-edition’s 2010, dashed one for ‘4 Play’. Her total Ghana Movie Awards wins is classified in three strokes (2010, 2013 and 2016), with the last been a supporting actress win for ‘Sala’.
Delivering back-to-back performances for cinema goers, Jackie attended the 2017 Excellence Awards, held in Ontario, Canada as an honorary recipient of the year’s Actress Award. She has over the years held onto the trademark as one of Africa’s biggest screen goddesses of all time while receiving nods at the annual Glitz Style Awards in the Africa Style Influencer of the Year 2018 and Movie Personality of the Year in 2017 categories earning her recognition in the fashion and style industry.
With a catalog of beauty brands, streaming platforms and magazine covers endorsements under her belt within her almost two-decades spanning career, she is by far the celebrity in Ghana that every other celebrity wants to meet.
