A master
screen comic, Nkem Owoh was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement
Award at the 2017 African Movie Academy Awards,AMAA, for his
contributions towards the development of the Nigerian film industry.
The awards ceremony held last month at Eko Hotel, Lagos.
You won
the Special Lifetime Achievement Award…
Yes. And I
appreciate it very well—more so than others I’ve received in the
past.
I must single
out this honour, because it covers all the previous ones. This is
“Life Achievement.” All the other awards are also achievements.
But this one is different. That’s the way I interpret it. That's
why this AMAA is so precious to me.
Where does
Nkem Owoh go from here, professionally?
I am in this
country. I’m in Nigeria and the world. So I just have to follow the
trends around me. And what the trends suggest, I do…. That is me. I
shouldn’t be having ambitions of diverting from this profession. So
I am going for anything that has to do with the film industry.
You don’t
want to emulate colleagues like Kanayo O. Kanayo?
No. I am not
going into politics. I have refused it. I don’t want to go into any
other profession but “show business,” “film making,”
“entertainment” and all the things that flags it.
What is
the state of the industry now?
Well, it
should have gone better than it is going. But with what is happening
in the country, you know, recession and what-have-you, that is
drawing everything back-it’s affecting the industry too.
I think by
the time the economy and everything that should move the country
forward comes up, the movie industry will start to move forward.
What are
you doing now?
I’m working
on some projects. One is for cable television-which I wouldn’t like
to disclose, at this time. It’s a series. The other is a film, a
box-office film.
If the
economy doesn’t get worse, you can expect to see them before next
year runs out. One is a comedy and the other is not.
You play
mainly comic roles. How did you get started as a screen comic?
Yes. I play
mainly comedy. I also act in serious roles—tragedy, drama and all
that. But when I found out that “comedy” moves ahead of the
others, I plunged into it!
Do you do
standup comedy?
I don’t do
standup comedy. But I go to clubs to entertain myself. I attend
public function-to which people invite me, from all over the
world-just to do a show of comedy.
How did
you get into film?
I don’t
know. You see, I was working with a broadcasting outfit, down in my
place—in Enugu, to be precise. People felt that I had a natural
gift, for making them laugh.
I was
basically a script writer. I was composing scripts for all these big
sitcoms (situation comedies) in the country. But they kept saying I
should come in front of the camera.
One day I
tried it; and it worked. I had to put my head where my pillow is! It
was making more money, for me, than writing scripts. So I followed
it! This was around 1994. Up to this day, I haven’t stopped!
How many
film have you done?
I’ve
produced about seven or eight film of my own, me as the sponsor, the
producer, director and the writer of the film. As for the movies
I’ve appeared in, I don’t know. I cannot put my fingers on the
figures, just now.
What has
been your most successful movie?
I don’t
like to place my movies in those types of categories. Because some
are so good, economically, in the sense that they bring more money
than others. Then some bring out what I have inside me--so I create
them. Like one film I did, for instance, that didn’t even make so
much money. But it was a story my granny told to me, when I was
eight. I had to write the story and bring it out, just like a
folktale.
That turned
out to be one of the best stories I’ve done. It was filmed as “King
Of The Forest,” in 2004.
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