INI Edo had made a name for herself in Nigeria and globally as a talented actress. She has equally diversified into other spheres of life as well as taken up an active role in Akwa Ibom where she works with the governor of the state. However, she made an indelible mark on the sands of time when she decided to collaborate with Chichi Nworah and other stakeholders to film one of the most talked about TV shows on Netflix in 2023, ‘Shanty Town.’ In this interactive session with NATION’S ASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR GBENGA BADA, she spoke on her role, the inspiration behind the film as well as how she decided to put the Ibibio language on the world map.
TELL me about what inspired your decision to venture into the production of Shanty Town?
What drew me to this project was what surrounds this business. We see it as people take to this profession as a substitute way of living. But the truth is, this is a cartel being operated by certain people, certain people in society; it’s a business that sometimes the rich people are the ones benefiting from these businesses. This is a conversation that needed to be had, as this happens in our society. The show isn’t just about prostitution, it also deals with human trafficking, human organ harvesting, drugs, and just all the activities of the underworld. It also highlights that some prostitutes aren’t pleased to be in the profession as some are forced or kidnapped.
So, tell me about some of the measures you had to take in getting the best out of the character you played?
To effectively portray my role, I visited some brothels to ask questions, interact with the commercial sex workers and get a feel of what goes down there. When you see the way that they’re being brutalised, the way that they’re being treated, you will begin to wonder like, so why are you here if you receive such treatments from this man? And you best understand that most of them don’t have a choice, most can’t leave because their lives have been threatened or their families have been threatened.
This would be the first time you are playing a role and speaking your native dialect, tell me about it
So, when the story writers were done, the lead female and supporting female characters were portrayed as Benin from Edo state but I felt why not Ibibio because the language is rarely highlighted, so, yeah, it was very intentional. It was intentional because, being a co-owner of the project, I have figured out that all my life in the industry, I’ve been made to speak different languages, and why not Ibibio? It was about time I put my beautiful culture on the map, and given this kind of platform, it felt like people’s time to be able to put that right.
Was that why you also had Nse Ikpe Etim as a member of the cast?
Interestingly no. Nse is my sister and we had a good time together filming Shanty Town. Her role was identified and she was the perfect fit and when we decided to make Ibibio the language of the character I played as well as Nse, it became magical. We both had so much fun speaking in our dialect because it’s not something we do regularly and I am happy that the richness of the culture and language was accepted globally.
You are so elated about the success and all you have done in and with Shanty Town, why is that?
Shanty Town is like a dream, and it’s a dream to be a part of something like this that gets the whole world’s attention and as a filmmaker, Shanty Town remains my favourite production for now. Shanty Town is one of a kind in terms of role interpretation, interpretation and giving life to characters. I’ve had so many interesting characters over the years. It is always hard for me to pick favourites, to be honest. And this is because all of them are different, I relate very differently to each one.
You were actively involved in the casting of Shanty Town, why Chidi Mokeme as the lead role?
Chidi playing the role of Scar was one of the most divine things about Shanty Town. Being able to make that casting work was a challenge as well because we wanted to set in a particular interpretation of the scar, and we couldn’t get it. There are so many talented actors in Nollywood. We just wanted something different and something you were looking up different, something unexpected, something fresh, and something with a certain level of depth.
For me, he was my cast from the get-go, and when we reached out to him because he was not in town at some point before he returned and when he eventually got the script, he was happy we cast him for the show, thankfully, everybody came around to just agreeing that he was just the best choice.
As expected in productions, there are always challenges. For Shanty Town, share some of your experiences
Of course, we experienced a lot of challenges. It’s quite a big project. So you don’t expect a lot of technical problems. You know, internal issues, past situations. And we did have a few challenges. However, we did have an excellent team with a very high level of professionals, who made the job easier even when there were problems. I would like to share an experience with you. In the car explosion scene, we did have a problem with one of the vehicles. The first vehicle we bought, the engine went wrong, and we had to buy another one and that meant that we couldn’t shoot that day and the whole day and everything scheduled to be done that day had to be moved to another day, and that meant a whole lot of money wasted. Those kinds of challenges would creep in every once in a while. Also, we did have issues managing the crowd. We had lots of cast extras and what have you. So yeah, we only had some of those challenges because our team was up-to-date with what they needed to do and handled everything.
Aside from these challenges, were there no other ones that almost made you quit?
Shanty Town was shockingly less hectic than you would expect it to be. Again, I’ll give that credit to the level of professionals we had onset. You know it could have otherwise been such a cumbersome shoot, such a problem if we didn’t have those people on set.