“I want to stand out by playing main characters in biopics”- Lateef Adedimeji

• Lateef Adedemeji has became famous for his significant role in the 2013 movie ‘Kudi Klepto’ by Yewande Adekoya.

• Over the past 15 years, he has appeared in more than 100 Nigerian films.

• Recently, he served as an executive producer for a Yoruba historical film called ‘Lisabi,’ which is now available on Netflix.

Adetola Abdullateef Adedimeji is a well-known Nigerian actor and filmmaker. He became famous for his significant role in the 2013 movie ‘Kudi Klepto’ by Yewande Adekoya.

Over the past 15 years, Lateef has appeared in more than 100 Nigerian films. Recently, he served as an executive producer for a Yoruba historical film called ‘Lisabi,’ which is now available on Netflix.

In an interview with The NATION’s ASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR, GBENGA BADA, he shared insights about the film and his relationship with his wife.

What inspired you to create a big historical film instead of a usual feel-good movie?

For me, I am so big on culture. I am so big on asa ati ise (customs and traditions), which is very key. And then I know how much we Nigerians in this part of the world celebrate heroes. And then what happens to our own heroes, we have a lot of them here, even as Nigerians, don’t even know their history. We don’t know their story. We don’t know anything about them.

So I feel it’s high time we started telling stories of those people and then after ‘Ayinla’ which is a biopic about the first biopic that I did, I came to that conclusion of telling biopic stories of people who are alive that have contributed a lot to the society. Or those that are gone that we don’t even know about.

After ‘Ayinla,’ I did about four other biopics. I did the one for the sitting president, I did ‘Ige.’ I’ve done biopics of people that are living. I’ve done about three people that are living and then ‘Ayinla’ is the first one about somebody that is no more. And ‘Lisabi’ is the second about someone that is no more and ‘Lisabi’ is quite big. That is the person that gave Egba the very first independence. It was the war that Lisabi fought that stopped the owo ori (tax paying), and that was the very first independence for the people of Egba. So I feel we should tell the story. I didn’t even know who Lisabi was until I started conducting the research. I just know that they will say, “Egba Omo Lisabi Egba Omo Lisabi (The Egbas, children of Lisabi).” I was like, “Who is this?” I thought it was one orisha (deity) or something. Well, when I dug into the story, I realised that this is somebody that lived and did all of these things. (I was like) “let’s tell the story.” and I’m glad a lot of people are accepting it. For so many people that do not know, they are getting to know that this is a real person and this is a reality.

I know you and your wife were producers on the project, was it your original idea or your wife’s idea to shoot ‘Lisabi’?

Yeah from the very beginning we had a film that we wanted to shoot at first but I thought to myself, I have done something that is from Ogun State which is ‘Ayinla.’ I feel I should still go back home and do one more if at all I’m gonna move ahead into telling some other stories. So, when I told her about ‘Lisabi’ she was skeptical at first, but I said, this is a story that would go far. This is a biopic and she loves the idea of me doing a biopic. I’m trying to create a niche for myself in that line and just do biopics of people that have been, those that are no more and all of that. And she was like, “It’s not a bad idea. Let’s try it.” and then that’s how she bought into the idea. “Okay, let’s do ‘Lisabi’ now. No problem. If that is what you want to do I know when you are bent on doing something there is something about it that you want to bring out.” And then we went ahead.

Did you both take part in choosing the characters, and what influenced your decisions for each one?

The casting was done by Mo Bimpe, myself and then Niyi Akinmolayan the director. From the outset when we thought about Olori Ilari from the writing of the story, we knew and we were certain that he was going to be Ibrahim Chatta because I know he is the one who can pull that character for me. It’s just about him. So from the outset, I knew he was going to be Ibrahim. Me and Debo, we have a very close relationship. If you go back to ‘Ayinla,’ you will see that it is the same line of friendship, we just flow naturally.

How does it feel knowing the movie isn’t part of the global stage?

I think that is what we’re still working on. I have sent a series of emails to Netflix because it’s supposed to be a global release. So why they released it in Africa and not in the global world yet is what we don’t know. I’m sure from our mails and from a lot of people that have mailed them and asked them questions, I’m sure they should be able to give a reply to whatever. People are very angry, and I wrote to them and told them “this movie is not just for Africa. It’s our story. The global world needs to see the story. And we have a lot of Nigerians in the diaspora that really want the story.” People were even swearing for me and I was like, “I’m not a streaming platform.”

Are you saying the audience took it to heart?

My mail is full of “What nonsense are you doing?” It’s just normal. I know that’s because there’s been a lot of excellent reviews. And then it’s painful to them that they are seeing this review and they can’t get to watch. So it’s just normal for that to happen, which is fine, so it’s not a problem. I’m sure they’ll work on it, and then they will do the needful.

How did you make sure the cast spoke Egba dialect even though not everyone is from Abeokuta?

Yeah, we had like two people who were always on ground for every major character. It was going to be a problem if you cannot speak Egba and we now have to force you to speak it. You get to be speaking the wrong thing. But there are some certain words that once you say it people can tell that it’s Egba. So we made sure that all of those keywords, people get it correctly. So we had coaches on set all the way down before each scene. They will listen to you. They will tell you okay “Okay, ti o ba le so eleyi legba ti o ba le so eleyi, so eleyi legba (If you cannot say this, say this in Egba) like that because it’s an Egba story. It won’t make sense for us to be telling an Egba backstory and we are speaking another dialect. Yeah, you know, so we have to pay attention to these things to bring it to life.