Nollywood Actress Yvonne Jegede has revealed how being non-igbo affected her in the movie industry. At this point, nobody is surprised by it amicably. Back then, especially, there were many tales of difficulty, numerous auditions, struggle, and a variety of other things associated with breaking into Nollywood. Star actress Yvonne Jegede is one actress who is currently speaking up about her personal struggles attempting to get into the Nigerian entertainment industry.
Yvonne Jegede has starred in a number of major productions throughout the course of her career, including 10 Days in Suncity, The FirstLady, Diamonds in the Sky, Okafor’s Law, Rising: City of Dreams, and many others. Although she is currently content with her career, getting there wasn’t easy. Yvonne Jegede discussed some of the challenges she has faced during her interview with the female hosts of TVC’s Your View.
Speaking about her journey into Nollywood and the troubles she faced, Yvonne Jegede said:
I joined Nollywood two times. The first time was when I was very young, during the African Queen era. Coming into Nollywood, I will not say I had a tough time. But I went for auditions. I trekked. I waka. I climbed okada well well. So it was a very good experience.
But one thing that kinda set me back at the time was the fact that I couldn’t speak Igbo and I was not an Igbo girl. So most times when I meet the marketers you know, they were old people, they would always speak me Igbo and I’d be like “I don’t understand what you’re saying” and they’ll be like “Ah ah”. So the communication was a problem. Most of them then were not enlightened like that. They were businessmen and it was a problem for me to really interact. But somehow somehow few of them gave me an opportunity. Then I left 2007.
Came back 2012, that was when I really came back. That was when I really came back and that was when I heard whim. It was hard because then people had seen some of my work and they were like “she sabi act that time, she go still sabi act?” I even got somebody who tried to give me a job in Enugu, he called me for a script then he said he had 10 scripts in total that he wanted to shoot and he wanted to put me in all of them. I said “Okay, alright. How much are you going to pay?” He said “Ehn, ah! I want to give you visibility, you dey still ask me how much”. For 10 movies. I had issues like that, I had problems! But here I am now.
