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Africa’s thriving entertainment industry has created pathways for aspiring actors to enter the film sector, with initiatives like the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF) leading the charge. Launched by African media giant MultiChoice, MTF nurtures emerging talent through workshops and productions, seamlessly integrating them into the continent’s dynamic film ecosystem. Alongside its subsidiary Africa Magic, MultiChoice […]
Africa’s thriving entertainment industry has created pathways for aspiring actors to enter the film sector, with initiatives like the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF) leading the charge. Launched by African media giant MultiChoice, MTF nurtures emerging talent through workshops and productions, seamlessly integrating them into the continent’s dynamic film ecosystem. Alongside its subsidiary Africa Magic, MultiChoice has played a pivotal role in shaping the career of Tope Olowoniyan, a rising star in Nollywood, known for her recent performances in films such as Summer Rain, Everything Light Touches, and The Party.
During the early stages of her career, for about five years, Olowoniyan worked on a lot of MTF and Africa Magic projects. With Africa Magic, she started out as a day player, filling scenes, supporting the supporting cast. From there, she grew into lead roles, shouldering one on the rejuvenated version of Ripples, a drama she had watched as a child. Being the lead gave her confidence that she was doing something right. Years later, now on top of her game, she returns to MTF to contribute to the next generation of storytellers.
Beyond the obvious reason for loyalty to MTF, she is enamored of what the initiative consistently does—gathering young talents across Africa, teaching them the craft, and showing them that there is a system and structure behind the industry. “I’m also working on my own project that I executive produced for Africa Magic,” she says. “Going from being in the background to having my own project on that same platform is so fulfilling.”
Olowoniyan’s formative years equipped her with the right environment to flourish. Her grandparents, being culture apologists, drew her attention to storytelling troupes rooted in traditions. Together with family, she enjoyed watching Nigerian stories like Fuji House of Commotion and home video films, and foreign family dramas such as Sound of Music and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which fascinated her and forged her commitment to telling stories that mirror familial and communal concerns. These early experiences, she says, constituted an emotional memory bank that she often reverts to for range in her acting. “I want to tell stories that bring families together, stories people can gather around and bond over, just like we did,” she says.
Art, as is popularly known, gives room for flexibility and dynamism. Often, the creative is open to exploring more than one artistic activity through which they express themselves and fork interrelated paths. Olowoniyan is mostly known for acting, but she also undertakes hosting duties and voice-overs. Through acting, she learns to compartmentalize, step into someone else’s skin, experience a different life, and ultimately become a better human outside her screen character. She currently hosts the Kellogg’s Superstars quiz show for kids, a challenging experience that requires her seizing the moment and connecting with kids like never before. Hosting, she says, teaches you to listen, ask good follow-up questions, and respond in the moment. With every creative space she occupies, she aims to leave an indelible impact as much as she entertains and elicits raw emotions—pandering to the utilitarian value of art.
On set, every actor has techniques that help them build chemistry with co-actors in order to easily create compelling on-screen relationships. For Olowoniyan, this includes striking a friendly conversation, sharing a drink, or engaging in any simple activity that helps them both relax and break the fourth wall, to achieve seamless intimate or romantic scenes. Earlier in her career, she prioritized having a sit-down before shooting; but having amassed more experience, she now has the capacity to mentally switch into her character despite the lingering preference for proper rehearsals.
“If I am meeting an actor for the first time I make sure we talk,” Olowoniyan says. “If it’s someone I already know, sometimes we just dive in because the comfort is already there.” To buttress this point, she recalls meeting and working without a young actor that played the role of her son, Nifemi, on Everything Light Touches, an MTF project. Before filming, the actor drew her attention to the fact that his mother was someone she had worked with years ago on Battleground and Hush for Africa Magic. That connection immediately broke the ice , as they video-called his mother. It made their on-screen relationship a smooth sail afterwards.
The globalization of Nollywood has made the industry’s productions accessible to people from different parts of the world, particularly through streaming giants like Netflix and Prime Video and festival circuits. It has also made it easier to propagate Nigeria’s inherently heterogenous nature, offering a leeway to films made in indigenous languages. Nevertheless, Olowoniyan is wary of western influences and hopes the industry maintains authenticity while trying to match global standards in production and technical quality. “A Nigerian film shouldn’t feel like an American film; it should feel Nigerian but meet the same global quality,” she says. This, she strongly believes, safeguards the country’s culture and identity against adulteration.
Out of the desire to further explore original contents, Olowoniyan recently launched her YouTube channel, an info-edutainment platform where every piece of content, she says, has a lesson, from nostalgic Christmas moments to Valentine butterflies, to shows that celebrate actors and fathers. The excitement about her current career status and prospects is understandable: she received a Best Actress nomination at the Toronto Nollywood International Film Festival, and has a grand project coming out this December. Drifting away from work, she enjoys cooking—what she describes as “a love language” and “one thing you can’t separate from me”—and baking for fun. With other hobbies, such as travelling, communing with nature and working out to stay physically and mentally fit, a wholesome personality of hers is formed.
In an industry that seems aspirational for raw acting talents, Olowoniyan feels young women stand a chance. But this, she says, comes at certain costs: skill development, lots of acting practice, rehearsing with mirrors in the house, taking favourite movie scenes and performing them in five different ways, preparing before the arrival of opportunities, trusting the process. To her, an actor should not just be selling a mood board on social media.
“There’s a difference between being a showman and a performer; choose your path and do it diligently,” she stresses. “For some people, it falls on their lap, but I strongly believe in the process. The gratification in the journey prepares you for the moment success comes.”
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