It is difficult to get beyond the forceful, compelling characters that Funke Akindele brought to life, but step away from all of that for just for a moment; as she speaks to Wilfred Okiche, it is evident that this is a woman with many incredible layers.
“These are my fans; they love and appreciate what I do, so I have to reciprocate. I cannot get tired at all.”
Funke Akindele has it.
That innate ability to walk into a place and brighten it I mmediately. I am sitting in a hair saloon, there are about five people in the room and we are all doing our best to ignore the next person. Then Ms. Akindele walks in and the atmosphere changes immediately. Bored looks give way to excited whispers, its almost palpable- like enchantment passing through. An eager beaver, unable to control herself any longer, screams out from the corner: ”Sulia Kan!” Unless you have been living under a rock these past few years, you know what’s coming next.
Funke smiles politely and responds ”Aiyetoro kan”
But does she ever get tired of this: the constant expectation to switch into character and become Jenifa, her most popular character automatically and at the mention of a name? “Ah, No I can’t get tired’’, she responds, maybe even ticked at the suggestion. “These are my fans; they love and appreciate what I do, so I have to reciprocate. I cannot get tired at all.’ I study her carefully, searching for any signs of strain on her face or body language that would betray her words. This may be cliché, but all that comes across is a young woman confident in her own skin, glad to be alive and lapping the love and support of her fans. And she should. She has worked for every bit of it.
THE DIVA
At the New York premiere of her latest film, The Return of Jenifa, a sequel to the 2009 blockbuster Jenifa, which she produced and starred in, the actress was reported by tabloids to be styled in designer jewelry worth $100,000. At the Lagos premiere of the same movie, after invited A-list celebrities had had their turn on the red carpet, Mademoiselle Akindele stepped out – a star, shining bright with or without the jewelry – of a black stretch limousine and into the waiting arms of the paparazzi falling over themselves to capture images of the lady of the moment. So the Funke really arrived ”I am very comfortable” she replies with a smile. ”I thank God. I pray to acquire more wealth because one can never be too comfortable. This is something i love doing and i get paid along the way so it is a plus for me. ”Everybody that words hard wants change, wants success but I am still me. About the jewelry, I don’t know how they came up with that story, all i know is I looked good that night and i totally rocked that look!”
Not that she will speak about her earning power, including the rumors of seven- figure sums, but anyone who has seen the original Jenifa and caught the Return of Jenifa this year, would notice that Ms. Akindele has certainly moved up a station.
“Funke smiles politely and responds ”Aiyetoro kan”
THE INGENUE
As anyone who knows the Funke Akindele story will tell you,it hasn’t always been this great. Long before the there was Jenifa, the pop-culture icon, there was Funke the girl with a dream. Born and raised in Lagos, Funke is the daughter of a gynecologist mother and an educationist father. ”My parents supported us in anything we decided to do” the University of Lagos-trained lawyer shares. ”My dad however, made sure we all got an education first. After which anything else could follow”
What followed was her love for performing. Always there, it was only after completing her secondary school that she dared to follow her dream. She had gained admission into the Ogun State Polytechnic and was studying for her National Diploma in Mass Communication when she started stories. The first movie in which she earned production credits – Ojeketala, released in 2004- was written during this period. it wasn’t long before Akindele knew she was ready for her close-up.
With faith in her daughter, her mother would hit the road with her scouting for that big break. But the big break needed small starts. ” Mt first experience on a movie set was in Opa Willams’ Naked Wire where i had a tiny role that included all of one line of dialogue”, she recalls.
Not the star -making turn she had envisioned, but after fruitless months on the streets, months accompanied by frustrated tears and empty wallets after unsuccessful auditions – she was grateful for the opportunity to prove herself. Her break finally came in the television series I Need to Know- a United Nations sponsored advocacy project aimed at educating young people on sexual behavior Funke cast her mind back: ”I worked on I Need to Know for four years where i played one of the leads: a teenager named Bisi, and when the show ended, I went back to movies. Or at least she tried to.
But as she was soon to find out, no one in the movie industry really cared about your TV bonafides. Not one to wait and wail, Fuunke made a quick move into the burgeoning Yoruba film industry and after one or two bit parts, was encouraged to settle in. ” I joined then ‘Odunfa Caucus’, home to the likes of Yinka Quadri, Taiwo Hassan, Lanre Abbey, andIi got my break from there” she says. ”I focused on my writing, decided to produce my own film and my mother helped pool resources together. Ojekatala was a success, I started producing other Yoruba movies and here we are today. I am back in Nollywood and have done a lot of English speaking movies recently.”
THE HARDEST WORKING WOMAN IN SHOW BUSINESS
Then there is this little problem,Ms. Akindele is an incredibly busy woman. She refers too herself simply as an actress but as an attempt at modesty, that title lends itself to extreme understatement. It is grossly limiting considering the range of work that she does. You could call her a triple threat of sorts: when she is not writing screenplays, she is acting them out, producing movies or attending to post-production details that linger long after her co-stars have turned in for the night. ”’What can I say?” she says, ”the reward for hard work is more work, so I don’t want to complain. I just wrapped up about three English movies, and I’m currently working on a script. We are shooting movies, hitting locations, preparing to do more television work and there is the Jenifa Organization, the non-profit organization which i oversee.
Surely for this brand ambassador for the Lagos tax office and a telecommunication brand, the stress of taking up all these responsibilities must get to her, but she will not complain. ”I am used to it” she says, ”So much so that even when i convince myself that go on a vacation. I end up spending one or two days and I’d be itching to get back to work. I fear I am a workaholic. I write my stories, everything, though i have a team of writers and we develop stories together till everything fits just right. We do script conferences where we hammer out the scripts till they are ready. I do all three – write, act and produce, and i love all of them. I can’t even pick one i enjoy the most”
”When I played Omo Ghetto, I had to go deep into the ghetto to learn how to talk like a ghetto girl.”
IN CHARACTER
Forgive another cliché but whether she’s playing high school debutante or world weary street urchin, Akindele is a natural. She has an unnerving capacity to take on a role, fill the screen completely and spill over into the lives of the audience watching her, such that her best performances tend to leave an indelible memory. She achieved it with the Jenifa movies and then recreated the image all over again inOmo Ghetto, and on the lesser level in smaller films in between the big project.
How does she do it?
“As an actress you have to be versatile, deep, flexible and able to play different characters” she offers. “I try to digest my script and go deep into it. I fell into the Maami character completely, put myself into her shoes and that is how it is whenever I play my characters. When I played Omo Ghetto, I had to go deep into the ghetto to learn how to talk like a ghetto girl.i lived with them, studied how they talk, move, dance, slept all so i could be the character and not just play her and after the shoot, it was hard to dissociate myself from the character.” She continues, warming up to the topic. ”I noticed early on after Jenifa, that because a lot of people love the Jenifa character, they wanted to type-cast me, even in the English movies; so I put my foot down and said no, don’t bring such scripts to me anymore. Even if you offer me millions, i will not take it because this is my career and it is mine alone to destroy, but i don’t have to because I love what I do.”
It is this passion for craft that has earned her a place on Nollywood’s A-list, where she has become more than just a famous face; evolving into that rare talent that can see a movie through the box office. Last year’s The Return of Jenifa had a first week gross of N10 million and had made N25 million as of the time of the interview – all of this from showing in the cinemas only. There are only a handful of movie stars working today who can manage this feat – if at all they exist.
”Young people these days want the good things of life and they want it now, no one wants to work or suffer anymore but i tell them that is not the way, it wasn’t that way for me”
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Whenever Ms. Akindele wraps up a movie, she unconsciously takes a bit of that character home with her. As she reveals, only very few friends still call her Funke , everyone else calls her Jenifa, even those who have known her all her life. It took her a long time to get out of the Omo Ghetto character and Maami definitely left its mark on her. ”I learnt a lot from Maami’s character, that as a mother, you have to give up a lot for your child and Maami was full of unconditional love for my son” she starts, soon finding her way to a tender spot side. “Every woman’s dream is to become mother someday and I am not different. It is something that I am looking forward to. I am hoping it happens soon because it is a journey I cannot wait to discover for myself”.
FUNKE FOREVER
Akindele, who has named her role model as the Madea series by Tyler Perry is focused on creating a body of work that will outlast her, and not just with movies, but reaching out to young people in a country that, she believes, has neglects them for too long. She has set up a school of dramatic arts, Scene One Productions, that trains young people in movie making , along with hands-on experience working on her projects. And like Perry, or indeed like her own movies from Jenifa to Omo Ghetto, that’s not all she teaches. ”Young people these days want the good things of life and they want it now, no one wants to work or suffer anymore but i tell them that is not the way, it wasn’t that way for me” Akindele says forcefully. ”It is not that easy. There is this Mary Mary song i hold dear to my heart, ‘Can’t give up now’ and i always sing it to them.”
Suddenly she begins to sing the song. I join in mid chorus. For a priceless moment, interviewer and interviewee bond; just the two of them – caught up in a poignant moment created by the film maker.
Moving on, the unabashed adherent of the militant Christianity of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries(MFM) quotes copiously from the Bible, Psalm 91 being a particular favorite of hers – the scripture focused on snakes and the fowler’s snare. ”I ensure that in all my movies, no matter what, I leave a message for the youth to reflect on because they are vulnerable and need all the direction they can get” she explains. ”That way, they can pass the message to the next generation”
It is not a role she set out to play, but it is one her path has thrust on her, she believes. ”When I started out, I went through a lot of nos, lots of rejection” she says slowly, even now still pained by the memories. ”Doors were slammed in my face but i remember that people like Nike Peller and Fathia Balogun supported me. So i feel I should use my present circumstances to help those who are coming after us. It is the least I can do”. Future generations of performers can indeed look back on the career of this trailblazing actor, writer and producer and say to themselves; that is an example. That is how you make the transition. From the small screen to big screen. From ingénue to crossover success to box-office top draw.
That is how it’s done.
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