Watching Citizen TV's Waihiga Mwaura go about his trade itself is inspiring to the many budding journalists as well as the young generation.
Not many Kenyans are aware that the award-winning journalist knows his way around acting.
In a November 24, 2015 interview on Beyond The Screen, the News Night anchor intimated how he landed a role in a TV series, The Team: Kenya, which was aimed at using soccer as the common ground to preach unity and root out social conflicts and aired on Citizen TV.
Right after college, Wahiga first worked at a call centre along Mombasa Road for a period of nine months. His job was to engage and convince callers to buy into the services offered by the company.
"My first job, I worked at a call center. I would talk with Americans for long hours, and maybe that is where I started own my media skills. The accent started to change," Waihiga narrated.
After he left the organisation, the famed journalist got a job at a bank. He had been on several occasions advised by his parents to try and make applications, and this time it was successful.
A few months into his new job, Waihiga figured out he didn't like banking. He recounted the numerous times famous people walked through the doors of the bank and made huge withdrawals or deposits. He felt challenged.
"I did everything, customer service, cashier, salesman, management trainee, and after a few months, I also knew this was not my place," Waihiga recounted.
"I remember popular artists, models, even do transitions for media houses, the checks were big, and I asked myself what it would take to be on that other side," he narrated.
After about a year, Waihiga quit his job at the bank and decided to pursue a business adventure. Unfortunately, the venture did not pick up.
"I went out and started a business with my brother, an internet business. We did that for like six months but we made losses and I figured this is not for me," Waihiga revealed.
An advertisement on the radio inspired the journalist to try out acting.
"One day I was in a matatu and I heard an advert for an audition for a TV show, so I tried it out," he added.
While engaging in small talk in between the auditions, his story of how the university graduate from Africa Nazarene University with a degree in computer science quit two jobs, including a bank job, to gamble for an acting role to some extent amused his fellow contestants.
Waihiga auditioned for the role of a character named Ben. The news anchor noted that he preferred the role because he generally did not have to do a lot in trying to be a good person.
"The audition was at Nyayo stadium, it was for a TV football show, and it was like 2,000 people there. So we did what we needed to and went home," Waihiga revealed.
"Two months later, around November, they called me for a second auction. We were now about 50," he stated.
In February 2009, days before Valentine's Day, he got a call from the producers of the programme. At the time, Waihiga had thought he was rejected and the filming had already started.
He was presented with the opportunity to play a role in the series, however, this time he was to play a bad character. When he asked why the answer left him in stitches.
"The bad guy role was to be played by a point five. That is a person who is half African, half caucasian. So they told me that all the guys they had contacted, they could not agree on the fee," Waihiga recounted.
"They told me they had seen my picture, in which I wore a yellow T-Shirt, and they were like, with a little makeup and relaxing my hair, I would be able to play the role as a point five, and I burst into laughter," he narrated.
After he was informed of the fee, what he wanted to achieve and what he had been through came to his head. He took the job.
