WALE OJO My Sex Scenes with Omotola Highly Erotic
The sky was cloudy, rain was imminent. There was gridlock with horns blaring as petulant drivers wanted to have their way. Unknown to many people, somewhere around that vicinity, seated calmly in a white Xterra SUV was an international superstar. He had p
In 2013, at the Fire of Zamani album launch by Ice Prince at Eko Hotel and Suites, Wale Ojo’s Smartphone was picked-off as he made his way to the VIP section through a surge of people.
All efforts made to retrieve the phone were futile. It was not the cost but the contents of the phone that made him feel bad about the loss. Aside the large number of contacts, the device had notes, videos and audio materials for a family book he was writing.
Many of his fans are oblivious of the talented thespian’s gift of scriptwriting. Ojo’s writings are mainly short stories and poems. He has written and produced a short film called, Ghost of Tarkwa Bay, which he says, will be released this year.
The movie, according to him, has the elements of Francophone cinema. But it is essentially also, a Nigerian story, which projects Ojo’s advocacy for good cinematic movies. He writes out of inspiration and passion for the arts. He also loves singing.
To his musical feat recently is a 16-piece Afro-beat band called, Wale Ojo and the Milagros. To catch Ojo display his musical side, he will be ‘LIVE AND UNPLUGGED’ at the Nine Zero Degrees on 707 Sanusi Fafunwa Victoria Island on Saturday, July 29.
Before returning to Nigeria, he played with several bands across the years while acting. Faced with the difficulties of breaking through in the UK film industry, he stayed true to his craft. To that, whenever he writes a script there’s always an element of music involved. Those years of challenges did attract the compassion of his parents. But he would not want to lean on them for support. He wanted to prove a point that he could make it on his own.
Once, at the age of eight, Ojo was involved in acting, doing different dramas with NTA Ibadan, courtesy of his uncle. There, he had the opportunity to meet the likes of Tunji Fatilewa, Sam Loco Efe, Akin Lewis, and Olumide Bakare.
“They were all budding actors then. I used to spend time backstage watching a lot of them. Now, they’re Nollywood legends mentored by great luminaries like the late Zulu Sofola (first published Nigerian female playwright and dramatist and first female professor of Theatre Arts in Africa),” he recalled.
Back in England, he had enrolled at Mayfield College at age 12 and through to the University with a Bachelor’s degree in drama. Upon graduation at 21, and having discovered his immense love for the stage, following a chance representation at the theatre in Edinburgh festival, he was cast for a role in Shakespeare’s play staged by Tower London Company as a young Othello in 1986.
Playing the role of Othello left him with a whole new experience. He confessed that a deep knowledge of the play, by years of understanding, is required to enable delivery on the role and that the works of Shakespeare impacted a great deal on him because in English acting one is trained in drama with the works of Shakespeare. To be sure, Ojo relishes those Shakespearean flavours that depict timeless understanding befitting of any student of Shakespeare as he displays his vast knowledge of the works. Such knowledge and love for Shakespeare at a time inspired him and other group of actors to embark on an experimental workshop with Hamlet, adapted as ‘Jagun Prince of Oyo.’
Packed with years of mixed experiences, Ojo likes doing stage and film acting, but prefers the former.
“Stage acting is the one that defines you most as an actor. That’s where you truly owned your craft. In film acting, you have a cushion to lean on as there are always stops. There is always assistance. But on stage, it’s like a race till the end.
“And I discovered I have done most of the stages back then in the United Kingdom. I really owned my craft acting on stage. I will always take to stage work,” he noted.
Artistically diverse, challenging characters drive him.
“Characters that are as far away from me as possible – if you look at my body of work you will see that the characters I played were very different from one to the other. I fly between the walls of comedy and serious drama,” Ojo stated.
From playing the mercurial buffoon, ‘Bayo’ in the sitcom ‘Meet The Adebanjos,’ an M-Net TV comedy series, to playing a psychologically adept and highly manipulative character ‘Kola’ in the movie ‘CEO’; to a corporate executive character ‘Akin’ in Phone Swap; then playing an Igbo trader ‘Ken’ in Elvis Chuks’ award-winning movie, ‘For The Wrong Reasons’, Ojo loves playing roles that depict and stretch his creative dexterity.