Dakore Akande who is popular for movies like “Fifty,” “Lunchtime Heroes” among others, was recently a guest at Pulse TV, where she dished out on everything interesting you would love to hear from her.
From 5 things people don’t know about her to her top 5 Nollywood actors, watch actress’ full interview with Pulse Nigeria.
Read excerpts;
On returning to the industry after a long break;
“My work isn’t done yet, it never was, it just kind of happened that way. It wasn’t something that I thought of and said ‘ok, it’s gonna be five years, I’m gonna take time off,” No. Life doesn’t really happen that way. It just happened, and my kids came quickly.
I’m happy, now I’m a mum of two, I’m more settled, but I had to even power through that to come back to work, and that was tough, it took a lot of guts.”
Giving credit to her fans, the actress said; “they would send me messages on my website and on Facebook “where are you, we miss you.” I think that kind of really touched me, and I was like ‘wow, so this is really important, like it’s not just a hobby.”
It made me feel like I made enough impact in the industry to be missed. It helped me make up my mind and say ‘you know what, I still have work to do.” And I found out that I’m not the kind of woman that’s happy just being at home.
I’m a creative, I need to be doing something creative. I’m happy that I have done that, and I can show people that it can be done, as far as you are determined, focused and have a good support system, which I’m happy to have.
On getting a good role in Nollywood;
“Extremely difficult. It’s like once in a lifetime. I’m grateful to be a part of “Fifty,” because it’s such a groundbreaking film on many levels – the fact of the box office, the fact that it sells out.
This is unheard of for a Nigerian film. It’s just amazing to be in such a project, because it shows the potentials that we have in our industry, and how people can catch on to certain trends that they didn’t even realize were there, and to touch a demographic of women and people in general.
So, it’s great, and it shows growth in Nollywood. But it’s slow. It’s a very slow growth, and I think it’s because it takes more people to make a film than for music. For music, you could just go to the studio and pretty much talk to the marketer and it’s out. But with film, you have to have a director, it’s a bigger animal.
It’s not a competition at the end of the day. What’s important is that our arts and culture industry in Nigeria is just at the forefront of labor. That’s what we really need to focus on”
On awards being a validation;
“I think it means different things to different people. I have been fortunate to have won awards, and it’s an amazing feeling. It’s a feeling of validation. It’s a feeling of respect, like ‘yes, I have arrived.’ But we have to be very careful, because sometimes, awards are very political, so you really should have a kind of fluid relationship with it.
“You have to still know who you are. You shouldn’t need the award to validate your work, especially when you are around people that are connoisseurs, and won’t just tell you you did a good job when you didn’t.
“So we have to be very careful because sometimes we struggle to win awards, and then you win the award, and it doesn’t do anything to your career. You have a lot of people who have won Oscars, and their career has sort of nosedived afterwards.
Watch full interview below
