Stella Damasus, a seasoned actress, has discussed the difficulties Nigerian actors face in landing Hollywood parts.
She clarified that the main obstacle to Nollywood actors landing Hollywood jobs is the Hollywood stereotype of Africans, which she claimed Nigerians don’t fit into.
According to the movie star, the Hollywood stereotype about Africans is that they are all as dark as Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o and have East African accents.
According to her, this makes Nigerian performers unsuitable for parts in Hollywood. The majority of Nigerian performers who have landed major roles in Hollywood, she noted, were brought up overseas.
“Hollywood filmmakers insist that Africans who want to act in their industry must have a particular accent,” Damasus said in an interview with Arrow House. Thus, they made our people wear it for that reason.
“We [Nigerians] don’t sound like that, maybe one or two small East African nations,” I said. They are Ghanaians, and I am Nigerian. Each of us has a unique voice and personality. It’s not how we [Nigerians] sound. Hollywood is after it. They are accustomed to that.
“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.’”