Bisola and Jemima Discuss Dirty Trick Many Actors Use to Steal Work from Fellow Actors

Today’s story isn’t peculiar to Nollywood only but other industries, it is an excerpt from a conversation that shows a very common problem that exists across a number of industries. No surprise, it also exists in the Nigerian movie industry.
During an episode of Ndani Real Talk, actresses Bisola Aiyeola and Jemima Osunde got into a conversation about a common thing that happens in the movie industry between actors where one tries to sabotage the other actor by offering up their services to a producer for less pay than they were willing to give to another actor.

Here is the excerpt from the NdaniRealTalk conversation about the issue.

Bisola: In this our industry, I’ve heard about times when for example somebody will say “Bisola, can you get me Jemima’s number? I want to give her this role,” and then I’m like “Enhhh, you want Jemima’s number? Ehnnn? She can act oh, she can act. How much do you want to pay her? 50k? Ehn? I can do it for 40k.”

Jemima Osunde:

Yeah, that happens. That happens a lot. That’s exactly what it is. They don’t care that it’s horrible. They are looking to feed. Everyone cares only for themselves.

Bisola: So do you think as actors we are just short changing ourselves by doing this? By accepting any fee?

Jemima Osunde: Absolutely. In fact we need a union, we need to sit together. We need a regulatory body, let’s agree amongst ourselves as actors. I do it with my friends in the industry, my girls. I say “guys if they call me for work, this is the base I will accept. This is it because I know that if I accept less than this, it’s not fair to the rest of you”. We’re not saying be exorbitant with your prices but we need to have an agreement that if anyone approaches you for work, this should be the minimum. This is the base fee. If I choose to now go way beyond that and they settle for someone else who charges something closer to what we’ve agreed on, then that’s fine. Obviously I won’t charge what Adesua is charging or what Genevieve is charging. That’s why I said “amongst my girls”. So I think about it this way, anyone who is trying to cast Jemima Osunde, who are the other people they will consider? They will look at Sharon Ooja, they will look at Ini Dima-Okojie.

This happens in all industries and it needs to be curbed, that can only be done if there are regulatory bodies in each industry.