Odunlade Adekola and English movies

The winner of the Yoruba Movie Academy Awards, Odunlade Adekola, wastes no time in telling his critics that he is not eager to accept a role in any Nollywood movie shot in English.

According to Adekola Odunlade ,

And to those who imagine that he has been shying away from such films because of his little knowledge of English, he replies, “That is not true. Contrary to what you think, I have appeared in two English language movies that have not been released. Soon, I will proceed on a location for yet another English language film.”

The actor is not obliged to apologise to anyone for his preference for Yoruba films. “It’s a life long dream of mine to become a world-class actor with bias for expressing myself in my mother tongue, which is Yoruba. I really don’t see how that has negatively affected some people. Really, I’m not crazy about the English roles because I don’t believe in trying too hard to speak the language that cannot bring out the best in me as a core and proud Yoruba man.

“Do the Amita Bachans and the Kapoors of India and the Yang Yin or Chang Chong from China try too hard to speak English? Why should my own case or those of us proudly projecting our indigenous language be different? Those popular soap operas that our ladies nowadays love to watch so much on TV that are from South America were not originally voiced in English language but Spanish.
“They are complaining that I love to act in Yoruba films a lot, but what the complainants don’t realise is, I’m creating job opportunities for graduates of English language to subtitle my films in English,” he says.