Veteran actress Stella Damasus has opened up about the challenges Nigerian actors face in securing roles in Hollywood.
She pointed out that a major barrier is Hollywood’s narrow stereotype of Africans—a portrayal that often doesn’t align with the Nigerian identity.
According to her, Hollywood tends to assume that all Africans speak with East African accents and have dark skin tones, referencing Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o as a common standard for that image.
She said this makes Nigerian actors misfits for Hollywood roles. She explained that most Nigerian actors who have bagged lead roles in Hollywood were raised abroad.
In a conversation with Arrow House, Damasus explained, “Hollywood filmmakers insist that there is a particular accent that Africans who want to act in their industry must have. So, that’s why they forced our people to put it on…
“I’m like, we [Nigerians] don’t sound like that, maybe one or two small countries in East Africa. I’m Nigerian, they are Ghanaians. We are different people and we all sound different. We [Nigerians] don’t sound like this. That’s what Hollywood wants. That’s what they are used to.
“Most of the Nigerians who have done big screen movies in Hollywood are people who were raised in England. Most of them have a different type of accent. And they [Hollywood filmmakers] said to me, ‘We want an African to be very dark.
“That’s the kind of African that we are used to. We are not used to your kind of African. We want Lupita dark. You are not dark enough and you are not white enough to be half-caste, so it would be hard to place you. You are not mixed race. Then your accent, you don’t sound American or British, neither do you sound African.’
“And I’m like, ‘How do you think Africans sound? Because Africa is full of a million and one countries. And inside those countries, we have different dialects and different accents.’”