Nollywood Produces Largest Quantity Movies not Quality – Akin Lewis

The veteran Nollywood actor Akin-Lewis late last year, launched Abake-Lewis Foundation for Arts (ALFA), named after his late mum, to train and retain materials that will compete in the arts industry. 

Akin-Lewis, a scion of the house of Moses Oladipupo Lewis of Olowogbowo Lagos and Abake Ekolo-Adedoja family of Oke Odo Ibadan. He travelled around Nigeria a lot with his Nigerian Railways engineer father, recalls the early 70s at the then Western Nigerian Government Broadcasting Corporation (WNTV) in Ibadan. At the onset of the civil war, he was sent to complete his primary education at Alafia Institute Primary school in Ibadan. He attended Lagelu Grammar school also in Ibadan where he sat for WAEC examination in 1973 after which his movie career kick-started professionally.

 

In an exclusive interview, the 58-year-old graduate from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), opens up on the myriad problems the movie industry is facing in Nigeria with TADE MAKINDE and other journalists.

 

When exactly did you become an actor?

Immediately I left secondary school I joined a professional team and got trained. That was before I went to study Drama. My first earnings as a pro was in 1974. I had been working since 1973, and in 1974 I got my first earnings.

 

Could you recall how you got your first movie role?

We were called for an audition. I went and I passed. That was it. Those were the days of Eddy Ngoma when he was a director and Balogun.

 

How well did the training you got from masters like Wole Soyinka help to shape your career?

Well let’s just say that was a solid foundation so to put, training to be a dramatist when we were trained.  There was a saying that outside the army, theater arts have the most discipline. You know, your call time is your call time. If it is 7am and you guys just finished one production at 6am that is nobody’s business. You got to be there by 7 O’clock. That was the kind of training we got and you have to be perfect in everything-as a dancer, a singer, an actor. There is no excuse. Those days if you die, the show continues. That was the kind of training we got. So, it is difficult for me today to comprehend the attitude of a lot of young talents who just shuffle around making noise but they don’t really know what they are doing. Acting is serious business.

 

What really inspires you on a movie set?

For me, life is always an inspiration. We were trained to observe and hear and so, I see people and I put them in my memory bank. I hear people and I do same thing so that for any project I am doing, I bring back all these lives, all these experiences, and I juxtapose them with people who are around me so I can centralise a character that I will use in whatever project I am working on. Life, people inspire me in few words.

 

What are the major challenges you have faced as an actor in the last four decades?

You know life itself is filled with challenges. Somebody once said to me, when you open your eyes every day, you are in trouble and that is the way it is. From getting up at 4 a.m in Lagos, trying to get to work by 8 o’clock and even trying to keep the job, so, life itself is a challenge. In that sense, I have faced many challenges. For me, my take is that it is not the possessions I have, nor the amount of money I have, it is how many obstacles I have overcome and I tell you, I have overcome so many to be where I am today.

 

What do you think is the greatest strength of an actor?

The biggest strength any actor has is flexibility. Being able to interprete all sorts of roles and characters. If am permitted to, I will say I belong in that mold. I was well trained. I was always the best student wherever I was. It was always coming out and I thank God for that.

 

What is that significant message that you try to pass across whenever you are on set?

I am always conscious of who I am. What I want to pass across is the impression that ‘this is a serious person o, don’t look at me and think otherwise’. That is why you won’t find me in some places. I seldom go to parties, even events. It has to be really heavy and really close to me, I don’t just have that kind of mien because really when we were starting off they thought ‘ oh he is a drop-out’ but now everybody wants to do this job because they feel there is a lot of stardom and money and am saying at that time we have to prove that we are not drop outs and so these days, I still am proving that this is serious business. That is it for me essentially, that is the message am passing across all the time, no matter the role, no matter the situation even when am not on set I am always careful because I know everybody is watching and I don’t want to pass anything negative. Some people think foolery or notoriety is what it’s all about, I don’t agree. I think every actor should go back home quietly, recuperate, be with your family and then and go for your next assignment.

 

How are you enjoying your second attempt at marriage?

Well….emmm…you know you always learn, and believe me I am still learning in everything I do. With that said, and with my past experience, this one is working. My radar is smart so I can see so many things coming and then you fix it before they get to such a stage.

 

Have you played your most challenging role yet?

No I have not because every role in itself is challenging and it’s different from the other ones just like as human beings are. I am still in the frame.

 

What factors do you consider before accepting a movie role?

A very good script that has a beginning, middle and an end. You can see the story, you see the characters growing. There are those who think they can write, but they don’t even know what it is to write a script so when I see a good story, I know it. Like humans, you will see the characters growing, you know, you will see the conflicts, you will see the challenges, you will just see that these are real people, that is a good script.

 

What has been your biggest achievement as an actor in the last four decades?

I became an actor at 22, I am still a star and I can still keep it together. My feet are firmly on the ground. I am not into all this hype. For me, this is a job. I go to work and I come back home. That is how to be normal. I don’t get carried away by the characters I play. I don’t get lost in ‘oh I played a billionaire there so I have to live like a billionaire’. Being able to put all of that together and still remain relevant is my greatest achievement in life.

 

Any hard lesson learnt on the job?

Oh yes, oh yes! There is politics everywhere and I think the biggest one, the hardest one for me, because it still tingles, was the year we did ‘Madam Dearest’.  For that year, in any language, in every genre, it was the best film in Africa, but they gave the best movie to somebody else. They said they wanted to mention us and I was like ‘what category’ is this mentioning thing. At that time, I just came back home, so it was very painful and I couldn’t understand why Nigerians behave that way. Those were the days when you would see a car facing you on your own side of the road. It’s like everybody is crazy. You see soldiers beating up people and I got a taste of that too just because I wouldn’t leave the road because they were coming down on me in a danfo. How would I have known that they were soldiers? I thought they were armed robbers, so I just stayed put and they turned out to be soldiers. Those were the days. And of course, it is worse now. That one just rankled because the politics behind it turned out to be ‘you need to give it to someone from my side’. But the truth is whoever got it then is not remembered again, while people still talk about Madam Dearest till today.

 

What is your take on the trend of actors becoming producers?

It boils down to lack of training. You see, the Theatre Arts is the most decentralised industry in the world In the sense that you have drivers, you have cooks; you have people in charge of welfare, you have actors, directors, producers, writers, etc. It is so decentralised you can feed the whole nation. Of course, there are people who are so talented and can produce, direct and even act, but how many are they? If you understand what it means to be a lead actor, you don’t want to produce and be a lead actor, or you don’t want to direct and be a producer. Men, you can go crazy. The thing in Nigeria is that it has become a fad. Everybody has to be a producer and I am like what? They don’t even understand the simplest thing about producing and that is a recipe for failure. You will realise that you are only able to do one and you are messing up the rest or you are messing up everything. I think they become producers because it is a means to an end for them. Some people feel that if they don’t produce, nobody will give them roles or money. I know the gravity of being one of these three and I don’t want to do the three at the same time. It is very difficult. Even the people that are so talented to do all three don’t do films every month or every week like we do here.

 

Aside piracy, what other factor do you think is hampering the growth of the Nigerian movie industry?

The growth of satellite TV. If you have N10,000, you can buy yourself a decoder and all you need is N1,000 every month to watch all the local dramas, all the movies, I mean it’s crazy. Right now, they are even giving pirates a run for their money. It has eaten deep into the market share for films and I think it’s going to take government policies to adjust that problem because here in Nigeria, it is like everything goes and nobody cares. I was watching the TV weeks ago and football fans were angry as they were not able to watch Nigeria vs Ethiopia on TV live because some marketers had put money on it and nobody could pay their outrageous fees. Come on, there should be a government policy that regulates that even if government will subsidise and allow people enjoy these things. About movies, there should also be a way government can help movie makers earn more, instead of the peanuts they get from satellite television when they broadcast movies.
 

40 years down the line, what is the difference between when you started and the present day?

My generation is the bridge between the old and the new. We were the ones that Wole Soyinka taught before he went into semi-retirement. I think the basic difference is that we were highly trained. I don’t know what their syllabuses are in schools of drama, but in school of drama then, you could hold your own with anybody from any other faculty or department. As a matter of fact, in the University of Ife then, we would open the session with a play and it became the norm every year the new session opened with a play at the Oduduwa hall. We were very relevant and you have to know what you were doing, otherwise you were out of drama school. That is one. There was no money then, unlike today. That is also very fundamental and then of course, the technology then wasn’t as vast unlike now that we have more sophisticated equipment and also the world is a small village and you get to be seen everywhere now, compared to those days when you could only be seen regionally. I was doing a programme back then in Ibadan, channel 3,4,5 and 7. In the east, Chika Okpala were doing Zebrudiya in New Masquerade. In the north, they were doing Samanja and like, but eventually, everything became national. And also, there are a lot more charlatans today than we had in our time because if this isn’t what you are cut out to do, you won’t stay. You will not make good grades and then you’ll be checked out. A lot of people don’t like hard work now. In our days, we didn’t have as much charlatans but today, everybody wants to act. Now, they are even shifting to music. Everybody wants to sing.

 

Nollywood is the third largest movie industry in the world. Does that mean anything to you?

The question I ask is this, third largest in what? In terms of quantity or quality? We need to be specific because in some quarters, people seem to think that we are as good as Hollywood or Bollywood. I’m telling you we still have a long way to go to catch up with those people. They have gone far. If you watch Indian movies of those days and these days, you’ll see what I am talking about. You look at America and you remember the days of silent movies and you see what they are doing today, you’ll know they have gone a long way. We might be the largest in terms of quantity, we still have a very long way to go in terms of quality.

 

With your strong background in acting, you also veered into the corporate world, why did you do that?

When I started acting, there was no money and we were doing it for art sake and we were very prolific. We were young boys and the little money we made was spent on pepper soup and the likes and then we started getting married, we started having our own families, we realised that this thing would not put food on the table for your family. Of course I had started seeing strains in the life of some of my colleagues at that time, so I just took a leap. It was a strategic decision then.  I needed surplus income and I also got some degrees, so I went in with my creativity and the rest is history.

 

While you were in the corporate world, how were you able to balance acting, your family and your daily job?

I am a very scheduled and serious person. If I tell you yes, it is yes. If we have an appointment, I am going to make it. If I am not going to make it, you will know. I guess I was able to do a lot of that just by being organised. When I think about it again, I didn’t have a lot of free time because my time were used in recording, weekend recording, holiday recording. I guess I was able to do it because of the kind of person that I am.

 

How do you get the balance between acting English movies and Yoruba ones?

Once you know what to do, you have the talent. It is like a template, you just slot it in and it gives you the answer. Language is a tool, just a tool. My body is another tool. Essentially, even without speaking, I can act and you can understand what I am trying to pass across. I can act in Hausa, French in all the languages that I can speak.  If you know exactly what you are doing, you will get your message across.

 

Do you still have dreams?

Yes, of course. Everybody should have dreams. You feel like you have one dream and after you accomplish it, another one pops up. Dreams will always keep coming, but for me, as I am seated here, everything I have always wanted to do, I have done.