I once wanted to be a soldier – Bimbo Manuel
Weekend Magazine: You have come a long way in the entertainment industry. Would you say you have reached the breakthrough in your career? Bimbo Manuel: Wow, breakthrough! Without any doubt, yes I have come a long way in entertainment having done just about everything and almost everywhere in the world, but breakthrough, how do you […]
Weekend Magazine: You have come a long way in the entertainment industry. Would you say you have reached the breakthrough in your career?
Bimbo Manuel: Wow, breakthrough! Without any doubt, yes I have come a long way in entertainment having done just about everything and almost everywhere in the world, but breakthrough, how do you answer that now? I would say reaching your breakthrough in acting or entertainment is absolutely a matter of personal hopes and aspirations. If you set out hoping for a big role in a big movie and you happen to get it mid-career or just as you set out, then maybe you will be able to assure yourself that you have indeed reached your breakthrough in which context it will mean you have reached the absolute pinnacle of your creative career. I see it differently, however. I am in a profession that has no retirement age imposed on you. Only health, incapacitation by age or a total loss of interest can retire you. If you consider that, then, I guess it is clear that I just keep crossing huddles and advancing in levels, contending with and working to overcome fresh professional and creative challenges. I have excelled at different levels before now. I am making new points at this level now and at each point, I have had the good fortune of recurrent successes. For that I thank God.
When was it?
Like I said, it is different with every level and there are various projects that I have been in that have represented those successes. I am one of those actors and entertainment practitioners who have registered strong presence at every critical junction of the industry especially in movies, television and stage performances. When the NTA was paying between N20 and N120 for lead roles and you wouldn’t get paid in another six to nine months… ‘Village Headmaster’, ‘SPACS’ by Danladi Bako, the ‘Telemovie’ series…when some producers went private, I played in ‘Ripples’ by Zeb Ejiro, there was ‘Checkmate’ by Amaka Igwe, that was an era. Home movies started as an offshoot of all that and some of the most memorable ones carried my credit – ‘Hostages’, ‘Raging Storm’, ‘Kingmaker’ by Olu and Joke Jacobs – one can go on and on, but the point is one has always done high quality jobs that give you pride to recall. So, it is a bit of challenge pointing in a particular direction saying ‘there was my breakthrough!’ It has been in different phases and there are jobs that represent each phase.
What inspired your choice for the entertainment industry?
Growing up, I attended secondary school in Ibadan and I think that was one of the most important factors in deciding o a career for me. I grew up listening to the greats on probably the best radio service south of the Sahara the then Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corpaoration, which later became Radio Oyo; the incomparable Tunji Marquis, George Joe Batteh, Alex Conde, folks like Smallet Alamu Special came later and I was always so thrilled by their radio art I wanted to be a disc jockey! My chance came when a friend suggested I attend an audition at the OGBC. Wow! Those were heady days, ma’am. I got a place on a presentation crew that had Gboyega Adeseye who later went on to read the NTA Network News, Femi Sowoolu, the man from ‘Wangawanga’, Bola Makinde and Tunji Babatunde Kuola Musical Madness who later crossed over to the FRCN2. Lots of folks who were the absolute best then, I knew I was not going to be anything else.
You convey realism in your characters, where do all the natural emotions come from?
A clear understanding of the character, you cannot become a character and emote as the character would, if you have no connecting point, an understanding of what makes it who it is, a point where the dream of the writer meets the realism of your own understanding. If the writer can think it, it must have happened to someone. Finding that someone is the actor’s job not necessarily in the flesh, but in the pains, joys, disappointments, fulfillment and so on that they feel, you find a connection and it can become a most useful handle to unlock the character every time you need to cue in.
Your self confidence is glaring. Do you make a conscious effort to project it or it comes naturally?
Eehm…I will take that as a compliment. Some others would have called it arrogance. I do not deliberately set out to ‘intimidate’ as you called it. I know I am quite good at what I do. I also know I can hold my own not just in my specialties, but in many other areas of cerebral deployment. Maybe that shows. I assure you, however, that it is not deliberate. I am, in fact, a very humble and open person. I do admire bright minds and deliberately seek them out to engage them. I do never set out to intimidate. I like to mentor and I do that quite regularly, but don’t knock it, self confidence is good, ma’am.
You are not seen in all movies unlike some of your comtemporaries. Do you ever regret having turned down some roles in the past?
Not at all. Look at me now, quite a number of my contemporaries have burnt out playing every role that came along. I can do this for another 30 years and I would still be fresh to my audience. That is my pension, the security for my old age in a profession that does not pay gratuity or pension.
Has your career in anyway had any positive or negative influence on the lives of your kids?
Of course it has had an influence on their lives. They are for instance able to intelligently discuss works of art. I guess it is also a thrill for them sometimes when their friends know they have a star father. I have however deliberately worked to keep them from any bad publicity. I have tried to be very responsible about my career…my wife and I agreed from the very beginning we owe them that protection. It has worked.
How have you been able to joggle fatherhood and your career?
Careful timing. Working in cooperation with my wife so I am hardly always away from home for long and chipping in to balance life out for them. We are a close knit family.
What else would Bimbo Manuel have been doing if he wasn’t in the entertainment industry?
Hahaha…I’ll tell you something most people never knew. There was time all I wanted to be was a soldier. That was about the time of the civil war. I attended exams and interviews to get into the army. I passed. My parents took me because I think then there was that talk we were going to the Nigerian Defense Academy and we would come out as army officers, but I think when the reality of the profession hit them, they changed their minds. I probably would have been in the Buba Marwa set, if I had joined. Who knows, but really when I was older, I just wanted to work and live in the university environment, do research and just read. That was about the same time radio and broadcast caught my fancy. My wife has fulfilled that dream for me now.
Do you think the Nigerian identity of unity is well represented in our movies and in the entertainment industry?
Wouldn’t that be reaping where you did not sow? Who is paying the Nigerian producer to make movies that promote Nigerian unity? If Nigeria wants the movies to promote the unity of the Nigerian nation, Nigeria must as a deliberate policy put her money where her mouth is, create environment, purpose, designed funding that drives such movies as a deliberate policy, a vision that she believes in like France, Britain and the US. Maybe because the notion of nationhood is contrived and exists only in the imagination of the few in the first place, talks like this lack conviction. When we have defined who the Nigerian is, when we have the trust and commitment of that Nigerian in the Nigerian project not as an act of propaganda, but of a carefully structured agenda that everyone agrees to, then maybe that producer will as a matter of conviction, commit his money to producing movies that push that agenda. Otherwise, he is producing movies to make money, as a trade, a business and he must decide carefully what he is selling. Is he going to leave what assures his money back and chase uncertainties in the form of unity? Yes, we all have social and civic responsibilities to the nation, but please, let even that be vision-driven. Let someone pay for it, I’m sure folks in Idumota, Iweka and such places will produce it, ma’am. Oh, they will. Otherwise, it’s money and it must bring back some.
One last word for readers
I am grateful; they kept faith this long.