How has your career been as an actor
It’s been quite challenging, not totally smooth. Would you say we still have great dramacontentscompared to the olden era?
Truth be told, as the year goes by, content of story changes, we still have content and we can never run dry of stories.
How would you recall your experience in plays like Check Mates and Fuji House of Commotion?
It was a memorable experience for me, during the era of CheckMates, the number of soaps were not much and we had good contents, enough contents for family values. And my experience then was more like transiting from stage to TV because I started as a stage actor, I went to school to study Theatre Arts.
As at 1989 I was still trying to adjust to Check Mate, before CheckMate I had done about 2 to 3 TV programmes but I really got a new scoop of acting in on screen during Check Mate The director then the Late Bolaji Daudu made me a crash course on the difference between acting on stage and acting on screen, so it was quite a wonderful experience.
When I was called to do that Check Mate Amaka Igwe of blessed memories came to watch me on stage, so she came and she saw my performance and called me to come and take part in Check Mate but I actually auditioned for the role and I got the part and ten years down the line she now saw the need to extract that family, Fuji House and make a series sitcom which was ten years after and it was around 2000 that she now came up with Fuji House of Commotion.
My character evolved from that young Chap in Check Mate and the older version in Fuji House, most people don’t know as at the time I did checkmate I was already out of Lagos and by the time I did Fuji House I was already out of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ife. So there was enough experience between heck mate and Fuji house.
I had gone through a lot of training, myself and going to school, so the two “Gbenros” from checkmate and Fuji House You’ll see the difference, till tomorrow some people still believe that I don’t talk.
Do you think the industry is growing or has grown or there is still a lot to do?
The Industry is growing. It might not be as perfect as we want but give and take I give kudos to us, even in the international market is investing in us and it is very visible that our contemporaries outside the countries want to collaborate with us, my first experience was with the CBN a Christian cable Network shot a film Heart of a Father in which ‘RMD’ was the lead I played his secretary and over time we saw that Nollywood was a part of international festivals and we would go out win laurels for the country .
My other experience was Half of a Yellow Sun in which I played the butler , so yes we are making progress , we are trying to improve on the technical sides in terms of stunts we don’t have stunts men, we have not perfected the act of horror movies In term of showcasing our culture we have done well for ourselves, maybe five ten years we will be there.
If it isn’t acting, what would you be doing?
If it’s not acting, I’ll be into voice over, dancing, singing but I don’t think I will be leaving the entertainment industry.
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