Married life hasn’t slowed down singer and actress Marsha Milan Londoh’s showbiz career.
The former Akademi Fantasia contestant, who got hitched last New Year’s Eve to businessman Mohamed Shaiful Nizam Mohamed Ismail, shares with us about married life.
“Our life is more complete, I feel there’s someone I can always rely on when I have problems, someone who can relieve my burden when I’m facing a tough situation,” says 30-year-old Marsha who hails from Tamparuli, Sabah.
Marsha, who has known Mohamed Shaiful for 10 years before tying the knot, is still discovering new things about her husband.
“Last time, I thought he was a happy-go-lucky person but when it comes to waking up in the morning, he’s a bit grumpy,” she says with a laugh. “But the caring part in him, nothing about that has changed.”
As much as Marsha embraces her role as a wife, she isn’t putting her career in the backseat either. “It doesn’t stop me from singing, hosting or acting because my husband is very supportive. But I have to know when is the time to be home, and when I can be out working,” she says.
“I’ve told him before that if I were to be married, my career should be my priority as well. Whatever I do, I still have to have his blessing. My family is my priority, but at the same time, they will understand my situation when it comes to my career.”
Marsha shares she is touched to see her husband waiting up for her whenever she works late. She adds he has been supportive of her career even before their nuptials.
“I started composing songs a few years back, but I never really pushed myself to release them. Sudah Ku Temui, which I wrote for him when we first started dating, is one of those songs that I’ve kept for a long time. I was looking for songs from composers at that time and he was the one who said, ‘Why do you have to find a song when you already have one?’.” She then decided to release Sudah Ku Temui as a single early this year.
The statuesque star teases she is working on a new song. Will it also be self-penned?
“I decided to go with composers, maybe they better understand the demands of the market,” she says. Marsha has chosen a song by Omar K (who did Faizal Tahir’s Assalamualaikum), and is waiting to finalise its lyrics before recording.
“I want something out of the box, I don’t want a typical love song and that’s what I asked from him (Omar). It’s a love song but it’s more general, it’s not necessarily romantic.”
Marsha, who has a horror flick called Tujuh coming out soon, wants to focus on her music career, scaling back on acting for fear that it will cost too much time away from her family.
“I want to focus on singing because there’s a lot more that I have to do in terms of finding my identity. It’s not that I’m a great actress already, but I think people have seen my acting abilities,” explains the singer, who sang 2013’s Bebaskan, the Bahasa Malaysia-version of Frozen’s Let It Go.
Marsha is currently working as a host on Sukan Tak Sentral, a comedy programme which parodies sports news, and on food-travelogue series Taste Selebriti.
She doesn’t cook much at home as she lives with her in-laws, but she does help with preparing the ingredients. “I usually only cook when my husband gets hungry in the middle of the night. He loves my mi goreng laksa, which is basically cooked instant noodles fried together with garlic, onions, chilli and asam laksa seasoning.”
