Nollywood in the past one year has been faced with various challenges ranging from actors illness to loss of veterans and young acts in the industry.
Speaking with Encomium magazine on the true state of the movie industry, Ayo Badmus, disclosed that the major cause of poverty in the industry is as a result of poor marketing and distribution. He stated that the take home pay of an actor is very poor which now leaves a misrepresentation of the actor in real life.
“Actually, what we do is called make-belief. I used to go to red carpet and move around, well dressed and all that. But later I stopped because it’s all make-belief. It’s not real at all. Our take home is very poor, due to what I have just mentioned, poor marketing and distribution. Then piracy which is milking us dry. So, things are so bad that it’s very difficult to recoup your money after investing so much in a movie. Everything is basically because of the poor structure we’re using. Our structure is terrible,” he said.
Speaking further on the fake lifestyle of some actors, Ayo explained:
“It’s very unfortunate that is what some of us enjoy. I remember, when Tunde Kelani produced a movie, Abeni, my character in that movie was what most of my fans loved so much. It was that of an American returnee who had all the gadgets, wears and all the swags. And some of my fans expected me to be dressing just like that outside. After the production, I found it difficult to get out of the character. It took about two weeks to get that character out of me. And I became the original Ayo Badmus again. If you watch all these so-called English movies, I can mention two or three actors who still behave the way they behave in the films. There is one of them who speak like an American, yet he is Igbo. In the movie, he dresses, moves like an American. They call him Bad Boy of Nollywood. You can’t differentiate him in real life from his character in movies. Left to me, I call it fake lifestyle. You even see most of our musicians speak in deep American accent, British accent and all that. And the funniest thing is that most of them have never travelled out of this country. You see only one person speaking in deep American accent, British accent, South African accent, let me tell you, it’s nothing but fake. That’s our major problem. A lot of these people don’t even have cars, they don’t have houses let alone paying rent.”