Nollywood actors, Richard Mofe-Damijo and Omoni Oboli has been slammed of a critical assessment of the Nollywood movie industry by filmmaker and director, Kesiena Obue.

It was learnt that Mofe-Damijo and Oboli are the lead actors in ‘Love Is War,’ a 2019 cinema movie that caused quite a stir with its racy scenes between two of Nollywood’s favourite actors.

The two have successfully established themselves among the most dependable role-interpreters in Nigeria’s cinematic experience.

Movie after movie, they have also proven to be faces that can gurantee any filmmaker box-office success.

Obue, a respected filmmaker has big credits to her name as scriptwriter behind works such as Bling Lagosians, Fela And The Kalakuta Queens and Wakaa The Musical among others.

She took on a subject rarely discussed singling out popular A-list actors who some refer to as ‘untouchables.’

According to her Nollywood actors need to wake up from redundancy.

Her words: “Characterization is suffering in Nollywood. We lack diversity in characters. Majority of our characters are the same. Handsome man, pretty, sexy babe; stereotypical and flat. No depth.

"A lot of Nollywood actors approach different characters the same way. Same mannerism, same vocal pattern, same gait, same accent, same physicality, same emotional delivery. Same everything. They go as they are. No difference between their real life selves and the characters they play.

Driving her point home, she hits the bulls eye, “RMD uses the same unhurried, guttural vocal pattern for all his characters. Omoni wears the same honey brown contact lens for all her characters. How and why?

"A lot of our actors do not put careful and deliberate thought into putting some degree of radical difference in the physicality, emotional experience and delivery of their characters.

"We are not all the same in this life. Our experiences are different and they shape our external and internal qualities. Same as the characters you play so you cannot afford to play them in the same manner.”

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“Actors need to discover the physical qualities of their characters; Mannerism, physicality, posture/gait, vocal pattern, behavioural norms, culture... the internal qualities; Thoughts, feelings, motivation, internal truth.

"Once you know these things, you will be able to convincingly delineate your character and deliver a performance that will resonate and linger.

"Dear Actor, give your character a soul. Once you discover the very thing that lies deep within that character, you will feel different in your body, soul, approach and delivery,” she advises young actors.

Obue, also talked about scriptwriters, “Writers and directors take the lion share of the blame here. A good script, a good direction should help the actor find the body, voice and soul of any character. It should always be in the text and directions.

"Writers need to give their characters soul and personality. Directors need to help their actors find the soul and personality of their characters. The character is not only the heart of the story but the story. A story is the character. We write too pretty in Nollywood.

"As an actor in Nollywood, if you are not handsome, pretty and sexy, wo, I pity you. There is no market for you at the moment but what do I know?"

Kesiena Obue is a Nigerian Filmmaker, theatre artist and author with a rising profile as a Writer, Director, Producer and Management Professional in Nigeria's highly acclaimed film and theatre industry.