Omotola Jalade Ekeinde needs little or no introduction. She’s as popular as the naira so much that there’s no way the story of NollyWood will be written without including her name. From her role in ‘Mortal Inheritance’ to ‘The Prostitute’ and recently ‘A Mother’s Love,’ she has, to her credit, several films that have become not only national hits but also Nigerian classics. She recently paused acting, but returned to the scene as a director. She recently directed a feature, which made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it got very good reviews. In this conversation with The Nation’s Entertainment Editor, GBENGA BADA, she opens up on a variety of issues.
What is your view of Nollywood, having seen the industry evolve to what it is now?
I see it bright. I see a bright and glorious future for Nollywood, to be honest. I said this on CNN a long time ago; I don’t know if people can remember, in 2014, when I was interviewed. I said Nollywood would be number 1, and a lot of people didn’t have faith. They came for me. They were like you people that shoot rubbish, how can you beat Hollywood? Who do you guys think you are? It’s happening already, and I think very soon, Nollywood will take its place in the world as the number 1 film industry. I’m a very firm believer of that, but many things need to be taken care of for us to get there, and that’s why I’ve been very vocal over the years. I’ve been doing that since I got into Nollywood as a teenager. My voice just got stronger as my platform became stronger. Even when I take breaks for my work mental health, I’m still adamant about the same things that I believe in now, which is the reason I started a festival back in 2019 called TEFFEST (The Entertainment Fair and Festival), and it’s about the business of entertainment, trying to bring us a par the business part of things around the world. We need to level up. I’m still very consistent about that, about our guilds. I hope that AGN will be unionised. Politics in AGN is appalling. We need to get our acts together; the children who are coming behind us depend on it.
Let’s talk about your new film, ‘Mother’s Love’. What was the inspiration behind the feature film?
‘Mother’s Love’ came as a story that I shot because I was under pressure, I’m not even going to lie. I’ve been very truthful about this journey to ‘Mothers Love’. I came on a vacation in 2025 and I had a meeting with Ruth. She called, and we had a conversation, and she said there’s a whole revolution with YouTube, and I said that was amazing. She showed me numbers and told me I had to get in the game. I told her I didn’t think it was for me because I was trying to do global movies and all of that. She insisted I get on the new thing happening on YouTube, and she kept pressurising me and all of that stuff. I told her I was here on vacation, and she said it’d only take like 3/4 days to shoot.
She was persistent and didn’t give up. She didn’t give me peace of mind. So I gave in and called my producer. I did it with my money and told her if I didn’t like it, no one would see it, and that was how we hurriedly did it. At the end of the day, if I didn’t like it, I’d not show anyone, and that’s how we shot the first project. Everything that could come at us came at us. There was fuel scarcity, power failure. We shot in 5 days, and I was very shocked. I was very thankful to her for giving me the courage to even try. I’m pretty much a perfectionist, and anyone who knows me knows I like perfection. Pre-production is the most important part of production, and I didn’t have any time to even do that. The whole task emboldened me, and so I asked my producer, ‘What if we did a feature film?’ and she was like, Why not? and so back to back, we started planning for ‘Mother’s Love’. I wanted it to be small; I didn’t want to do anything big. So we had to look for a small story we could contain. Something I was very passionate about at the time, and something my energy could carry. ‘Mother’s Love’ was the story I found. We had to rework the story to just happen in Nigeria. It’s just 5 characters. My mentality through all of this was What’s the worst that could happen? I had to encourage myself to just do it. I didn’t procrastinate; I just jumped in and got my leg in the water. If I don’t like it, no one gets to see it. I’d just watch it at home to learn and see what I can do to improve. At the end of the day, we shot ‘Mother’s Love’ in less than 2 weeks. When we started editing, I was so scared, and that’s why it took so long to come out. I’ve been second-guessing myself. When you are at a particular level in life, you start thinking you’d be judged by people. I kept talking myself out of it, but I showed people, and they applauded me. I was still unsure, but I went back to edit. I kept losing and gaining momentum. By the time I started showing it to people and started getting positive feedback, I started getting encouraged, and here we are.
It was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Are you planning to bring it to the Nigerian market or to sell a streaming platform?
So when I shot it, I was hoping that even if it ever gets seen, it will go to a streaming platform. Even our style of shooting, there are two sorts of streaming, there’s straight to the streamers and cinema. The way you shoot a project determines where it goes. My shooting was for the worst-case scenario; it’ll go to some kind of streamer if at all, but now I’m trying to adjust for cinema. By the time we finished, there were already problems with the streamers in Nigeria, so that also shook my confidence. I didn’t shoot for the cinema, it’s a drama piece, a project. For cinema, you don’t want to shoot too much of a deep project unless you’re taking it to festivals. You want to do something with. Cinema is adrenaline. You want people to be excited. For streaming, they pause and take the project in. They enjoy the dialogue. They are two different types of shooting or story-based kind of production, but we were able to edit to match for cinema to the best of our ability. It’ll be coming to cinemas, but I just feel I’d be doing an injustice if I didn’t do the festival rounds. Right now, we are in festival rounds; we just came back, as you mentioned earlier, from TIFF. Our next stop is the Silicon Valley Film Festival. That’s the only film festival in the Bay. ‘Mother’s Love’ actually houses a business which is one of its kind as well. It’s a business, but also a movie, because there’s business being launched out of the movie. So going there to show the movie is exciting for the team, and that’s where we’d be next.
Now that you’ve gotten your confidence back, are we going to be seeing more?
As a director, I enjoyed it. I’ve always directed movies. I just never did it for career sake. I’ve always supported directors. I’m very big on characterisation and storytelling. Directors would just call me to give an insight into certain characters. Over the years, I’ve rewritten people’s scripts, but people didn’t know that because I didn’t ask for credit. Some have given me credit, though, but I didn’t publicise that part of me. I’ve been consulted on movies as well. I’ve done a lot of behind-the-scenes work as the years rolled by. I just don’t put it on my resume because I just wanted to be an actor, but now, turning 30 years in the industry, I want to give the young lady Ruth credit for accelerating the process. I knew I had to free my content from when I relocated because, from where you’re coming from, you overthink these things and put yourself on some kind of pedestal that isn’t necessary. Overthinking is just in your head, but God used that young lady to remove the bandage. I’m on a roller coaster and I’m enjoying it.
Is the movie going on YouTube?
It’s not going on YouTube anymore. It was good too, and that was crazy. We did it, and people were like it should not be on YouTube because it was very good. I’m taking it to MultiChoice and Showmax.
Can you tell me which one of the new talents you enjoy watching?
There are so many. I see so many talents, but I don’t know so many of them. You’re putting me on the spot. I like Bucci Franklin. I worked with him on ‘Rattlesnake’, and I remember he was the one who jumped out at me, so when I saw him in ‘To Kill a Monkey’, I was not shocked. I knew there was a lot there. He’s one person I was already looking out for.
Also, his co-star in the same movie, I saw him in another movie, and there was another part to him. I felt he’s world-class material. For the female, I like all the girls.
