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Nollywood is a dream about to crash - Emeka Ike
16 October, 2007 08:13:00
By Daily Champion
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Emeka Ike (pix: Sola Osofisan)
For lovers of Nollywood and ardent movie watchers, he is a household name. For ladies, he is that guy who always sheds tears after a heartbreak. He is Emeka Ike. The Mbano, Imo State born actor, who thrills his fans with his passionate act in love movies, says he only cries for his money. The Mechanical Engineering graduate turned actor, narrates how he had to leave home for a year in his bid to pursue his destiny, but not without a stiff opposition from his parents.
Just making a return back to the screens after the ban on him and some other actors had been lifted, this father of two (Michael and Kelly) says the high demand for his face on the screen is simply because he is a good product.
To his numerous female admirers, though, there is a limit as he makes bold to say of his wife, Ema, "she is my second me."
At his Surulere office, Lagos, in this chat with atim ikpeme, the loverboy/jilted lover star opened up on issues bordering on the industry, married life, his person etc, with actually nothing to hide. Enjoy.
Acting
I got into acting by stroke of opportunity. I finished school but there was nothing to do then, to practice what I read. So while waiting for what to do, I came upon acting.
I used to stay with a friend then, about the time my friend Ernest Obi and Segun Arinze were actors in the Soap "Mega Fortunes" and Ernest invited me to location and I met Uncle Charles the producer of the soap. He saw me and told me the only way I could get the role was if I could interpret it well and I did and so it just went on and on.
Early acting influence
I am actually not a friend, friend person but I could mention a person like Ernest Obi, he was and still is someone I like a lot. Chico Ejiro also had a role in my upcoming. I also admire RMD.
Early passion
I wanted to be a star musician. I used to be in the choir, I used to play the keyboard. Then when Majek Fashek came out with the song "Send down the rain" I was so thrilled and I loved the way he sang , it was as if his whole being was singing and I used to see him as a demigod then. He actually got me so into music.
Now I play the guitar and the bass. I would have loved very much to be a musician before acting came. Funny enough I did not read music, I read engineering. My maths teacher back then in school had told my parents not to let me read any other thing apart from Chemistry, Physics and Maths saying that I would make a good doctor or engineer one day. So my parents insisted I should read the sciences and I read Mechanical Engineering, I never thought I could do it but I did.
I’m trying to set up an audio studio to keep my dream alive, and this I can do by discovering and encouraging new artistes.
The break
The way new artistes see it, may be because they are recognized they think they have the break, that is why they couldn’t hold the market when we were banned. It’s not about a particular movie, you just keep doing this things right. "Day break" was a chart buster but yet I wasn’t selling jackets as Emeka Ike. I didn’t have so much money.
We sold so much into this rise in Nollywood. It’s the desire to do what you are doing right that people admire. But a lot of other people think it is coming to upseat something that is important. No, you can’t upseat anybody, you just keep being the person you are until you fade out or you remain if you have what it takes. Every of my movie was a break.
Challenging role(s)
The problem with my movies is that I play them to dictate. I must give the bite the movie demands, and it’s very challenging trying to keep up with that. So every of my role is challenging. Though it was more challenging when I did my first epic movie, because I had to go barechest and the sunfly and mosquitoes touched me well.
And when I played the role of Denco, an armed robber, I had to imagine how an armed robber feels. All in all it is challenging to try and be somebody else.
Challenges
 The challenges are that of steadfastness. I know some stars that would have remained with us today but they quit too early. It’s easy to see stars today who just appear for like five movies and before you know it, they are being paid 60,000.00, 80,000 and 100,000 in two years. And this is possible because we prepared the terrain and I’m not ashamed to say that. I owe no one apologies.
We walked on streets as stars without cars nor bikes, we didn’t have anything, so people ridiculed us. Because then I was known as I am known now and I’m still living slightly a low life. Then, people even waved the name actors away with their hands saying things like "these actors sef."
So then actors were seen as riffratts who couldn’t become anything but a couple of us held on to what we believed in and we saw it coming that one day, we would make the break. At a point in Nigerian movies, our only reward was criticism but we still held on, and made sure that we took it to the next level, where stars had to drink Eva water on set and not pure water.
It annoys me when we have taken it to the next level and someone who just came yesterday becomes swollen headed in what he/she did not suffer for, not knowing what others have been through.
That is why I didn’t feel bad about the ban, because plenty of us were feeling swollen headed, big, I wish more people had been banned. Ramsey Noah is cool headed for his level of fame, RMD is cool headed for his level of fame but these few ones that have just come up from nowhere want to make people feel as if they are here and around. That’s not how it should be.
Magic of staying in demand in Nollywood
I’m the product, movie making is just an imaginative thing, which you must do right. When they banned and when we were coming back, I told myself, "wow can you meet up" before I went on set. I take the scripts and had a second view of myself straight, "be it".
Giving my best to my roles, the best of interpretation is the magic that has kept me here because nobody wants to see your fine face. It’s the character they want to see, what you deliver that is important.
Crying on set
The character basis is that you have to be that person. Any inch away from the person you are just not it. When you understand a character from scene one to the exit... when I am impersonating somebody, I put passion into it, then I have a flow. There’s need for people to see the situation, feel the situation. A good actor has to play by the role.
I cry to make my money. To make the people feel what the character is going through, what it means to be jilted, how it feels.
The industry at this point is tilted towards romance and that’s why I play these roles. It’s a seasonal thing, one sees that one producer made love movie and it sold bomb, so every other producer goes for it, to make their money. Love scripts start flying, that’s the market.
You need to understand why the tears drop from his eyes, then will you understand the story. That’s why it looks as if I’m playing more of these roles. When it was gangster season, I played Derico, and till now okada people still call me Derico Nwa mama. It just has to do with the season and the market.
Embarrassing moments
I have had so many that I can’t recount. On the phone so many people just upset you. Okay, sometime last year my father died and I just drove myself to quiet place, I was listening to my music and crying while chanting the phrase "my father is dead"
Then this person called my phone and I had sob in my throat, I answered and said "Hello", and the person said I want to talk to Emeka and I said "sorry you can’t talk to Emeka now and the lady just screamed and said "what do you mean, I cannot talk to Emeka, what are you feeling like, is it because you’re an actor".
And then dropped the phone. It’s so bad when people don’t know that you are a human being with some moments that are not too good. But all the same I have lovely fans, who send me text, telling me to advice them on one thing or the other, fans who encourage me.
Parental support
My parents were totally against my going into acting. It was like "are you crazy, mechanical engineer, we just used our small money to train you and you want to go and join Baba Luwe, Zebrudaya and others, all these actors.
I had to leave home for one year, I knew I wasn’t going to do anything bad, so I decided to take my destiny in my hands, I took a bold step. Like what happened to Katung of the Big Brother Nigeria fame, whose parents had to leave their position in Church because of him, that is exactly what happened to my parents, they were castigated by the church, my parents were deacons in the Assemblies of God, they told my parents that I had gone away from the way of the Lord. They said "how can he lead us when his son is wayward, and an actor, doing bad things on the screen". There was so much discrimination against my parents. My father became disillusioned because the church started in his house at Isolo. My father felt so bad, that he even became hypertensive, saying he can’t make it to heaven.
That is why I appreciate Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, he advice the youths to go out and look for something good to do, so as to have what to give to God. Religion is not to hold anybody ransom as the Church was doing to my parents.
I tried to explain to my father that I knew what I was doing, I was acting to give a message to the people, a message on what was happening in the society. My father believed in me, because I have never lied to him, so when I told him that I was acting, doing something good and not getting myself involved in anything wrong, I told him that I am trying to depict the society, we actors are like pastors.
Nollywood
Nollywood is a dream that is about to crash, a dream that is about to be destroyed, because there is no cohesion. The producers league, they are not in cohesion, directors guide are not in cohesion and we the actors, we speak with double mouth. Marketers are trying their best, that’s where they can front their power because they bring the money but very soon, financial investors who have made more money will come in and stampede them and will now impose their own stars on Nigerians and at that point we will begin to have less productions, we will begin to run out of ideas because we need so much money to meet up the taste and libido of our new audience.
It’s time for government to come out with something. The man at the helm of affairs in censors board should not be talking only about censorship but should talk to government about calling a stakeholders meeting and talk about investing in the industry, how we can use Nollywood to stampede threats from other countries, to stamp Nigeria as the real giant of Africa now that we have international acclaim or else South Africa will take it from us.
Fees
I’m comfortable and I am not complaining. The old hands should improve themselves, they should not just sit on the fence and complain that the money is not good, for the new ones should work harder so that they can have people demanding for their product.
Fame
Stardom is what you see. I have a way around fame. I didn’t budget for this, I don’t have privacy anymore, you can’t just sit down and scream. Stardom is an elevated position and should not be treated with levity because you have become a role model.
Things people don’t know about you.
People don’t know that I’m really a shy person, they don’t know that I also have my own opinions about our society and things around me because the opinions I usually push out are those of the script.
Married life
It’s been bliss for me. Because I was able to listen to Pastor Bimbo Odukoya of blessed memory, she saved me the stress of marrying a bad wife. She has made me discover the virtue that I wanted, she said "young men save yourself from marriage". At that point when you have fifty girlfriends and you’re sampling all of them, if your wife walks in at that moment, she’ll sneak out and you don’t see her but she will be the most quiet of them all or the most outspoken of all of them but because you are in a crowd, you can’t sieve the good one out. There are so many fakes out there. So if you don’t stay away for like a period, you will miss your own and risk yourself.
I stayed away from playing for one year, most Nigerian girls didn’t know at that point. I discovered the truth, I met my wife "mama" as I call her. And I discovered that there’s a good in her and it didn’t take me long to ask her to marry me. And so far, I have not regretted my decision because she’s always by my side. She’s running my home, my kids, and my business. She’s my second me and that is what everyman should pray for.
Marriage for me is a companionship and understanding thing and we are blessed with two boys though she is asking for a third.
What is sexy on a woman
Whatever speaks for her. The style that she has on at that point in time. It’s not the openness of the cloth but the way it’s fitting on her.
Hobbies
Listening to music, playing the guitar, keyboard and football.
Body grooming
Yeah I gym up once in a while and I believe in keeping fit. I have my kits in my house and if I lodge in a hotel it must have a gym where I can keep fit because keeping fit is important to me and my act.
I don’t go for massage. My wife keeps telling me to go for one, manicure and pedicure but I can’t. "How can I just go and let a lady massage me, what if she turns me on?" My wife does it once in a while but that’s the only thing she is lazy at doing. If I come back and I need a massage, she’ll say that she also needs a massage, so who will massage who?
What can’t you do without
I can’t do without God. I can’t do without water but there’s nothing material that I can’t do without.
What would you not be caught dead wearing
A lady’s’ dress. I look good in suits when I wear them but its not one of the things I really love wearing. And my job demands that I dress in casuals and its okay with me.
Business and acting
When I’m on set, I put people to stay and run things in my studio, handling the camera, doing things and running the business. This structure helps me to have a focus.
Last Word
I love my fans dearly. If I have offended you in anyway through your phone calls, it’s not intentional, it could be because I was held up with something.
I love you all, always believe in yourself and in what you can do. Always listen to your mind, if you are in a crowd, do not believe the yes of the crowd, your mind will tell you the real yes, go with it and only then can we make a good and better Nigeria.
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Comments (10 posted):
Emeka,
I enjoyed the story of how you ventured into acting. I also got touched by the price your parents had to pay for your adventure. I hope you and your parents have grown past this. Unbehalf of the Church, I would say that you forgive our ignorance. I would also remind you to brighten the corner where ever you are. I love watching your movies and they preach a lot to me. I do atimes cry when you or Stella cries in a movie. I am sure you know that the passion you have is not unrealated to your relationship with God. You have become a model to many. May your lifestyle and marriage also be a model to our erring society. Lastly, 'May the Lord Depend on You'. The next time you come to the United States, let me know. God bless you.
Abel
I THOT THAT THINGS WERE EASY FOR YOU BUT ALL THE SAME KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. PROVE TO YOUR PARRENTS THAT YOU ARE THERE(ON SCREEN) FOR A PURPOSE AND NOT ANYTHING ELSE. PROUD OF YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU.
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