Nigerian Actors are good enough to earn $1m per movie role – IK Ogbonna

THE WILL NIGERIA

Actor, model, movie producer and director, Ikechukwu Mitchel Ogbonna, speaks with IVORY UKONU about his career, some of the challenges facing Nollywood and how to tackle them. Excerpts:

How long have you been in the movie industry?

My life has been a movie I must say. I have always wanted to be popular, even though I had no idea how to go about it. I always felt like I was a star that needed to be seen.

But you haven’t always been an actor

Yes, I started out as a model. And like I said, my life has been a movie, I have been an actor all my life, from the day I was born. But professionally, I joined Nollywood in 2011. But before then, I had a few minor roles here and there. I was a housemate in the Amstel Malta Box Office reality TV show in 2005. The show was geared towards positioning house mates in Nollywood. When I came out of the show, I began to hustle for movie roles, but they weren’t coming. So I just stayed away. I don’t like pushing or forcing things. I feel like anything God wants for me should happen naturally without me trying too hard. So I focused on modelling for some years locally and internationally.

In between those times, I did some television presenting for two shows: One was about legends and the other about music, it was called ‘Music and Vibes’ for movie producer, Elvis Chuks. So while I presented his music show, I got the opportunity to appear in a few scenes in some of his television series. But I joined Nollywood fully when my colleague, Rukky Sanda, told me she wanted to give me a role to play in her movie.

I got to the movie set, saw actors like Nse Ikpe-Etim, Yemi Blaq, Kate Henshaw, developed cold feet and ran away. Rukky was quite upset with me, but she called me again to play the lead role for another movie. You can imagine me, never really acted in a proper movie and then just jumping right into playing a lead role in my first movie. I did the movie but I wasn’t quite sure I performed well but when the poster of the movie came out, my followers on Facebook began increasing, people began to show me love. That opened doors for me and I must say that Rukky was really instrumental to my acceptance into Nollywood because I was playing the lead role in virtually every movie she was producing.

Elvis, Rukky and even Ini Edo played very vital roles in my career. They prepared me, kept pushing me, giving me big roles and pairing me with very big actors. So it came to me when I least expected it and it came with force, I wasn’t really ready for it but I embraced it.

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And that ended your modeling career?

I can never truly abandon modelling because till today, I still influence products and services for brands. Some designers pay me to wear their clothes. It is the same as modelling. But the difference is that now I am a brand and I cannot discuss with other brands along the same line I am influencing at the moment, unlike in the early days when I could just model for different companies. Now, instead of just paying me to advertise something, it is more of a partnership. I am not doing as many modelling gigs as I did back then because the pay now is huge. So it is still a part of me.