Veteran Nollywood actress Stella Damasus has expressed her views on why Nigerians struggle to secure roles in Hollywood.
She believes that Nigerian actors do not conform to Hollywood’s stereotypical image of Africans, which poses a significant barrier for them.
Damasus stated that Hollywood often portrays Africans as having East African accents and as being similarly dark-skinned to Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o.
This perception, she argues, makes it challenging for Nigerian actors to fit into Hollywood roles. She also noted that many Nigerian actors who succeed in landing lead roles in Hollywood were raised outside of Nigeria.
In a conversation with Arrow House, Damasus explained, “Hollywood filmmakers insist that there is a particular accent that Africans who want to act in their industry must have. So, that’s why they forced our people to put it on.
“I’m like, we [Nigerians] don’t sound like that, maybe one or two small countries in East Africa. I’m Nigerian, they are Ghanaians. We are different people and we all sound different. We [Nigerians] don’t sound like this. That’s what Hollywood wants. That’s what they are used to.
“Most of the Nigerians who have done big screen movies in Hollywood are people who were raised in England. Most of them have a different type of accent. And they [Hollywood filmmakers] said to me, ‘We want an African to be very dark.
“That’s the kind of African that we are used to. We are not used to your kind of African. We want Lupita dark. You are not dark enough and you are not white enough to be half-caste, so it would be hard to place you. You are not mixed race. Then your accent, you don’t sound American or British, neither do you sound African.
“And I’m like, ‘How do you think Africans sound? Because Africa is full of a million and one countries. And inside those countries, we have different dialects and different accents.“
