THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED!!...
We are jumping straight into the deep end with this one folks. Hope you can swim good. Being an actor in Nigeria has shown me many things. It has taught me even more. There is the general misconception of what life as an actor is from the perspective of the fans, audience and anyone else who is on the outside looking in. By now we all know, peeling back the layers of the false truths of the actors world is one reason this blog was created. However, permit me to temporarily hang up my vigilante cape and pull the focus from you guys, my fabulous readers for a bit. This post is directed directly at actors and industry executives, but mostly actors (may I still find work after this… ah screw it, where there is life there is hope)
Now you will have to use your imaginations and work with me a little because I will run this post a little long (but it’ll work I promise). let me paint you a picture. You go into the market or store or wherever you make your purchases from. You go in there knowing you want to make a purchase, it’s not like you’re looking for shelter from the wind (that’s what your house and/or car is for). So since you didn’t walk into the store for choir practice, obviously you go in with the legal tender that will enable you complete your transaction. Without the money to give in exchange for the item(s) you want to buy, there is no way you can leave the store with the stuff. So you are either mad (I.e. mentally challenged) or a thief, if you walk into a store to purchase an item with no money to do so. Whichever of the two you choose puts you in some considerable amount of hot water (or flaming tires because Nigerian jungle justice is a classless wonder that grew up to be an ultimate bastard). Without the money to exchange for the item(s) you want to buy, you cannot leave that place with the stuff you want (I had to repeat that for emphasis). Now we will bring it home. Actors?Actors? ACTORSSSSS??? (how many times did I call your name?) YOU ARE THE LEGAL TENDER TO COMPLETE THE TRANSACTION OF FILMMAKING.
If you disagree with me, let me do what I do best (win arguments) and prove it to you. So you have your film/ production executives, sharp as pins, ready to get this film rolling. Writers banging away passionately at the keys of their laptops. Costume department on slay. Make up department on fleek (what does fleek even mean… ugh God). Locations are so beautiful they look like they were peeled off a postcard. Sound department is giving you all the feels because the sound is so crisp it speaks to your very soul. The set department guys are like the soldiers from 300; ready to die on the line to get that plant in the exact position it needs to be in to look authentic (THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAA!). The director is a super hybrid of Scorsese, Tarantino, Kubrick, Spielberg and Bergman (wow this industry is sexist) and your post production team runs for 22 hours non-stop on Florence and the Machine (and most likely hangs out with her at coven lounge for Bloody Mary’s and brain tenders while listening to the whispers of other worlds) Everything, I mean everything they need to make this blockbuster smash hit a rip roaring success is in place and ready to go, but they haven’t shot a single scene yet. Can you guess why? No? Let me help you, it’s because THERE ARE NO ACTORS!!!
You don't say
Actors, you are the money that all those guys I mentioned above need in order to go into the store and leave with the stuff they came for. They would be either mad (I.e. mentally challenged) or thieves if they came into the filmmaking market to purchase a brilliant film without the actors to use as legal tender in exchange for that. They know this and they are not complaining; which is why Chadwick Boseman is now the British pound of actors (I mean see, forget the animal lust that’s beating in my bones for that man… sigh, HE IS AN INCREDIBLE ACTOR. Google the work he’s done before Black Panther and be amazed). Every other person on planet film seems to know the value of a good actor except THE ACTOR!!. Much like the inflation that has blitzed the Naira into a smoothie of downward spiralling disaster, the value of the Nigerian actor has not been digested properly and is just a pile of fresh hot diarrhoeal poo poo in the pants of society. When there are one million and one vomit worthy but cheap alternatives claiming to be actors and flooding the artistic space with their triple false eyelashes, 55 inch human hair wigs and accents from the burning annals of hell, you begin to see where the problem was born. But when the REAL actors who have talent, have been trained in the craft, who dedicate their life and time to perfecting it, who breathe, sleep and LIVE this #actorslife, don’t know or enforce their own value, you can understand why that same problem had the nerve to get up, walk into your kitchen, open your pot of fresh goat and ram meat pepper soup, and proceed to eat ALL the meat inside leaving the pepper water there for you to dip your sorrows in ( ah! may God save us from death and destruction).
When the actor does not realize that they are an important part of a whole endeavour, we begin to second guess and short change ourselves. And once you are in that head space, you peddle around your hard earned expertise like plantain chips by the side of the road. Running after cars, weaving in and out of moving traffic to sell 2 packs of N100 gala (shebi gala is 100 bucks abi?). It is sad when you see a good actor that doesn’t know their worth and shameful when you see actors being labelled as divas, or difficult to work with because they insist on being paid a fee commensurate with the quality of work they provide. After all, if they weren’t good at the job, you would not have called them in the first place. Actors walk around these streets like Oliver twist begging for jobs and accepting whatever is handed to them with a smile because they don’t want to be branded as difficult.
The concept of ‘putting an actor in their place’ for the myriad reasons that it happens has become a pandemic with far reaching consequences on the quality of actors being used to represent our industry. If a person wants to be a bat or a bird or a plane and fly high in the sky, what is your own? Is it your sky? Is it your wing they removed to use and fly? How is it, that a person seeing themselves as valuable has become a bad thing? It is pride and ‘carrying shoulder up’ that is worrying them that's why they won't come and rub your ego till it's smooth as a pebble for jobs. That a person is good at what they do and doesn't mope around waiting for someone else to validate their value, is chooking you to the point where you make it your life's mission to bring them down back to earth where they belong. Who told you that is where they belong? Did anyone tell YOU where to belong? I dare say if someone had told you to shut up, sit down and be only what they gave you permission to be, you would not now have enough time and resources to invent these giant wing clipping shears you so arbitrarily wield. Hunger and torn shoes will not allow you to stand up from the floor mat in your face me I face you, mould ridden house, much less give you enough energy to be the wing clipping fairy that gets to clippin’ whenever an actor doesn’t play the agreeable opinion-less doormat.
It's wing clipping time!!!
Don't be that guy or lady who offers good actors peanuts or "exposure" and then bad mouths them to others when they refuse to be a charity case. If what you can afford/ or are willing to pay is not what the actor is willing to accept, then shake hands, part ways civilly and end it there. Even when the actor is being an asshole which is a completely different kettle of fish, (and there is a way to roast fish that will either leave it burnt and bitter or succulent and delicious), a film exec should have no business messing around with someone’s else's livelihood. Work with people based on merit, not because they called you mummy or daddy and sent gifts to your office, that they bought with the barely there money they are struggling to have. That is NOT respect, it is PANDERING and we will talk about that extensively in another post. Think about it this way; if you, the executive, are in this business to make money, and not to be on a compulsory water fast for 5 days out of every week because #brokeness, is it not possible, I mean is there not the slightest possibility that the actors you are working with want to be able to afford to eat as well? Abi am I crazy? That was for the people in this industry who have the "power" and don't use it objectively. If this doesn't apply to you, PLEASE OH don't come for my career, because I would not make a fantastic prostitute or customer service rep and I need to eat. Thank you and may God bless you as you comply.
Actors I'm back to you, what is the problem? Who told you that films and stories can be told without you in the mix, therefore you are just lucky to be cast? Who told you that it is easy to CRY ON CUE, be slapped convincingly take after take, kiss a mouth that is not Chadwick Boseman's mouth (because every other mouth is now not worthy), walk around nearly naked (and for the brave ones) stark naked in unfavourable weather, for the whole "ndemmadu" to see what is only meant for your husband/wife to see? Who told you all of that is not worth much, so you can accept next to nothing, struggle to pay your rent and then ultimately die of some disease that an Instagram help campaigns can not raise enough money to treat. Kai!!! It drove me nuts when I saw that one of the longest serving veterans in our field, who does amazing work and has been doing it for twice as long as I've been alive, was ill and his family needed to raise money on Instagram to be able to treat him!! HOW IS THAT OKAY? If that has been the standard for the actors that came before us, is that what we will allow to continue? If they paved the path for us to even dream of having acting careers and not just acting as hobbies or in church conventions, then don't we owe it to them AND ourselves to make what they started better? (I’m just weak abeg).
ACTORS THE WAY WE SEE OURSELVES IS NOT OKAY. And the truth is that as long as we continue to walk around, cap in hand like we are the bottom of the barrel sludge just being helped and taken along on someone else's exciting ride, then we will continue to be treated as such. And don't sit around blaming anyone, if YOU aren't will to do something for yourself about it! YOU have to ask for more money. YOU have to ask for better working conditions. YOU have to go and learn the rudiments of business, marketing comms, and strategy planning, so you can position yourself for growth (I am painfully going through this process now, because it is vanity. not hunger that will make me lose weight). YOU have to develop yourself constantly and add to your value so that your skills are never dull and are ever ready to kick a roles butt till it yells uncle. YOU have to do these things because if you don't, no one else will do them for you, and they’ll never get done. No one will move this mountain for us and it will just keep sitting there laughing at our account statements at the end of each month. Come on people, don't let mountains laugh at us now.
That's your bank statement?? Get off me right now!
Malcolm X once said “We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves”. But if he’s too #blacklivesmatter for you listen to, Mandy Hale, in a brilliant book says “you will never gain anyone’s approval by begging for it. When you stand confident in your own worth, respect follows”. But if she is too #whitepriviledge for you to reckon with, Anee Icha says “may lightening strike dead the devil not letting you see your own value”. There is a long way to go for the Nigerian actor and we have barely packed our bags and hit the road, but we will have to soon. And it would be much better if we do it before supporting our chosen lives, plunges our families into poverty (I'm just kidding, they'll definitely disown you way before that happens lol).
I may not know where the road to making things better will lead, but my bags are packed, the snackage is plentiful, the music is legit and I'm ready to hit the road, so who's coming with me??