Veteran Nigerian actress Stella Damasus has spoken about why many Nigerian actors find it difficult to secure roles in Hollywood, NaijNaira can report.
Damasus believes Hollywood often holds narrow views about African actors, focusing on specific accents and darker skin tones.
Speaking in an interview with Arrow House, Damasus said, “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.”
She noted that Nigerian actors generally do not speak with the accent Hollywood prefers, which is usually linked to a few East African countries.
“We (Nigerians) don’t sound like that. Maybe one or two small countries in East Africa do. I’m Nigerian, they are Ghanaians. We are different people and we all sound different,” she said.
Damasus added that most Nigerian actors who have found success in Hollywood were raised in England and speak with different accents.
She also revealed that Hollywood casting teams once told her, “We want an African to be very dark. That’s the kind of African that we are used to. 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.”
Questioning this limited perception, Damasus asked, “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.”
Article updated 52 minutes ago. Content is written and modified by multiple authors.
