Eniola Ajao has been the name on the lips of lovers of Nollywood for some weeks now, owing to the hype and success of her ‘Beast of two worlds’ movie, doing huge numbers across cinemas in Nigeria. In a recent interview, she talked about the concept of the movie, her next project and experiences in Nollywood.
How did you get the idea for ‘Beast of two worlds’?
I got the inspiration from Femi Adebayo’s ‘Ageshinkole’. He took such a huge risk to make the movie. In the Yoruba branch of Nollywood, we usually don’t take big risks, but Femi took that risk and I was motivated that if he could do it, I could as well. I contacted Mr Bayo Tijani that I needed something creative, something that would befit me. We started to source for stories. We finally decided to make ‘Beast of two worlds’.
How long did it take to create the concept?
We were on it for about six months before we were able to go with ‘Beast of two worlds’ because there were a lot of scripts. I picked this because it is an unusual story. It was nothing like what I had seen before.
How were you able to raise funding for this movie?
It wasn’t easy. I had to sell a lot of things. I sold my cars, lands around Ajah and then some gold that I had at the time. I sold them to make the movie. It was a decision I had to take without telling anybody because a lot of people would have said ‘Don’t do this, you don’t even know what would come out of this, you cannot sell all your life investments just because you want to make a movie.’ This was why I decided not to tell anybody, I sold everything and decided to go on with it.
What was the thing pushing you to take such a risk?
Success. I feel like life itself is a risk and we are here to take risks. You can’t just be in a spot and say you want to be successful. If I do this and it’s not successful, then I will try again. I don’t know if God was just speaking to me or God just wanted me to do this, but out of nowhere, that strong determination just came.
There was this story that went around just before the shoot that you were almost poisoned.
I almost poisoned myself because there was something about me that was put online. The news about me was far from being true. I didn’t eat for like seven days, and people that were around me can testify to this. I couldn’t go anywhere. This was around the same time when I was planning my movie. My sister, my son, everyone was calling me because the story came from nowhere and I felt terrible.
Do you think that the stunt using Idris Okuneye (Bobrisky) at the premiere contributed to the success of the movie?
Yes and no. Now, the movie is selling itself, but in the beginning, I had that fear. When I saw the story, I knew it was going to do well but I did not want to depend on that belief, I needed to do more and push more. I was the originator of the publicity stunt, it was my idea. I sent Bob a message, and he responded immediately. I explained to him my idea about the premiere and that I wanted to create some buzz. He agreed without question even though I wasn’t going to pay. He told me that he had done something similar to a buzz for Mercy too. All of those were stunts too. So, I came up with my own buzz, it was all to just create noise around the film.
How do you feel personally about what he had to go through with EFCC?
Terrible is the word, honestly. I don’t want to go into all that at all. It’s terrible.
How do you feel about the fact that the buzz generated caused a major quarrel between Femi Adebayo and Dayo Amusa who has also helped push the movie?
I felt so terrible because I just wanted to create a story, I didn’t even know such was going to come up. When I saw the issues it generated, I started making calls to placate all parties because it was never my plan to create issues. I just wanted to create a buzz.
Were there other campaign strategies you wanted to use asides the whole Bobrisky debacle that you put to a stop when the issue with Bob generated?
