As widely acknowledged, whatever has a beginning must have an end, but that is not the case with Nollywood and from the evolution of the sector, certain faces have been seen on our TV screens so often that one almost expects to see them in every film produced. The Nigerian movie industry has grown enormously over the past few years, but are upcoming actors given the opportunity to excel?
ANTHONY ADA ABRAHAM writes.
For some time now, Nigerians have continued to complain about the lack of innovation in the movie industry.
While some are seen as the eyes of the industry, others are seen as back benchers. Like in the past people are given the opportunity to compete for a particular role in a movie. But these days, there are too many ‘hungry actors’ who want to be on screen and accorded the celebrity acronyms.
What are the factors necessitating the continued crave for same faces in the movie industry? Is it that they don’t have any talent that could compete favourably with their entrenched counterparts?
Papa aka ‘Miss P’ is an Abuja based artiste and a Nollywood upcoming actress. In an interview with our reporter, the scintillating actress stated that it all depends on the personality.
“Intimidation from the bigger artistes is one of the factors necessitating the continued showing of known faces while the upcoming ones are hardly given the opportunities. If you are not a known face, sometimes, most producers feel you can’t sell. But it depends on who you are working with, some believe in talent and polish it when they see it weather you are popular or not, their major interest is how good the artist is. It’s the desperate ones that do whatsoever to make it. If you are focused and know what you want and especially if you are good at what you do, it will only be a matter of time,” she explained.
She added “yes by the grace of God the young shall grow like it’s being said, all these popular faces you see today where once upcomers.
The Movies
In a random sampling conducted by our reporter, in a 100 movies produced by different filmmakers, checks have it that there are same faces starring as the lead actors. Though the movie producers would say profit must be their watchwords. Presently, this peculiar name, Lupita N’yongo is a known face in the movie industry. Before staring in 12 years a slave that won her accolades for her role and becoming the biggest thing that has happened to Africa, she wasn’t known at all.
The question here is, why are upcoming actors not given opportunity like the self-acclaimed ‘big boys or girls’ of the industry to compete favourably? Any movie you see an upcoming actor featuring is always said to be wacky!
Unlike the music industry that one cannot predict who would win a certain award; the movie industry is a sham and not meeting its high grade expectation.
Awards
Like most movie awards that go on around the country, the people that have been acting since Nigeria was amalgamated are still the ones sweeping the awards. When would the younger generation be given the opportunity to compete without fear or favour?
According to Emmanuel Nwanosike, a movie critic, “people who produce movies have the bigger portion of the blame because they don’t care about the name at stake, what they are after is the money they can make from the movie.
An investigation by our reporter has it that 80 per cent of upcoming actresses have been sexually harassed either by their producers or directors. Though some of them have debunked that fact majority of them who don’t care to give-in just to star in a role have either become overnight ‘celebrity’ or ‘passenger actor’. They are hardly taken serious as professionals because they don’t have what it takes.
Those who have made it with their talent have excelled even with the continued molestation by some unscrupulous movie makers who can’t do without bedding their female crew members.
According to a Nollywood lover, Dorcas Ojo, she said that why same faces continue to sweep awards in Nigeria is because the upcoming ones are not giving that same opportunity to compete with their counterparts.
“I believe that as a movie lover, if I continue to watch same movie stars Aki and Pawpaw, Genevieve Nnaji, Rita Dominic, Ramsey Noah, Jim Iyke, Nonso Diobi, Clarion Chukwura, Nkem Owoh, Patience Ozokwor, John Okafor, Desmond Elliot and others. I believe it will become so boring one day. The younger generation must be given an opportunity to excel. That is why many Nigerians find it difficult to watch our movies,” she said.
“If the upcoming ones are giving good role to play and the charter is serious; I think we can break that jinx that has been keeping us from favourably competing with our European counterparts.” She explained.
In a related development, some upcoming actors and actresses have continued to react on this issue.
One of them is Skutch, an upcoming actor, musician who has starred in numerous movies; he stresses that the pain of a known face in the movie industry doing almost all the movies has hindered some imminent actors from breaking into the limelight but believes that consistency will always help the younger ones.
“Well, it’s quite challenging because in Nollywood a known actor does almost all the movies but there is still little chance for the younger ones especially when you are a good actor. Consistency and patience is also the key.
“In Hollywood, chances of every good actor becoming famous are 90 per cent while in Nollywood,it’s 20 per cent,” he said.
Way Forward
Everyone should be given same opportunity to achieve in life. Just like in the music industry, movie makers should shun sentiment or lust and help the younger generation who are inspired by passion to nurture their talent to fruition so that more awards and accolades can come to Nigeria.
Written By ANTHONY ADA ABRAHAM
culled from leadership.ng
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