In a recent chat with journalist, Jayne Augoye, popular Yoruba actor Femi Adebayo talked about his career and family, Read Below:
Femi Adebayo's career took a totally different dimension in 2011 when he produced a comedy flick entitled Jelili.
The film centered around the very hilarious travails of five ‘village’ guys who pretended to be ladies in order to vie for a catchy prize they couldn’t resist in a beauty pageant.
A trained lawyer, Adebayo, who also
bagged a Masters degree in Law, succumbed to the trappings of
super-stardom to pursue a career in the Nigerian movie industry.
The fame and goodwill notwithstanding, Adebayo still nurses a silent ambition to practice law later.
“Litigation is going nowhere. I see my
time in entertainment as God’s calling, so I have to heed to the call. I
would definitely go back to law at the end of the day,” he notes.
At some point in his career, Adebayo has
been faced with very intriguing situations where he has to star
alongside his father in several movies. So, what happens when a script
requires him to either slap or beat up his father?
“Work is different from family. On the
field, we are totally different. We drop being family when we are at
work. This is because I see him as a senior colleague (My oga at the
top), and whatever we are supposed to do on set, we do it, and that’s
theatre. I once had scenes that I acted as an armed robber and went to
rob my father, and I had to slap him and also had to do it well without
any inhibitions,” he says, laughing.
Ever the thorough father that he is, Adebayo says his dad would scold him if he fails to interpret the role accordingly.
“If I don’t play the role well, he (my father) will get upset and tell me to slap him well, saying, ‘It is your work’.”
He also debunks rumors that he was
quitting acting to go into politics. “Acting came naturally to me. And I
am grateful to God for that and that story is not true at all. I am yet
to announce whether or not I am going into politics. If I decide to go
it will not be a secret. So people should wait for that time – though I
believe voice of the people is the voice of God.”
