Nollywood actress and producer Tope Olowoniyan has drawn a hard line through her love life.
Sitting with Joey Akan on The Joey Akan Experience, she said she will not marry a fellow actor, and she did not dress the answer up as a joke.
“I, Tope, an actress, cannot marry an actor. It’s not my interest. Not because of the onscreen romance. It’s just not the kind of people I am personally interested in. And it’s not because they’re not handsome or attractive, but there has to be so much more than physical attraction. I just have to be with someone I’m interested in,” she said.
Olowoniyan, born Temitope Elizabeth Olowoniyan in Zaria in 1992, has spent years in front of the camera and now produces through Bayla Productions. She is single and has kept her private life tightly closed, which makes the statement land even harder.
She also spelled out the burden on whoever does end up with an actor.
“I believe that you have to know that acting is their job and have the emotional capacity and bandwidth to tolerate it because we live in a country where when you kiss someone in a film, they don’t take it as just playing a role.”
From there she turned on how films get sold.
“The creatives in Nollywood need to learn how to think outside the box and make the audience learn how to accept the content outside dancing on TikTok to sell the film. The audience should know that if we want to grow, we have to like a film because of the quality and content. In most of Hollywood, you don’t see people dancing to sell their films.”
She has heard the complaint that the same faces keep showing up. She did not accept the blame.
“I see people complaining of getting tired of seeing the same people, but it’s not our fault. You are like two out of the 100 people that prefer seeing the same faces in films.”