Adewale Adeoye, popularly known as
Elesho, is one of the veterans in the Yoruba movie industry, having been
around for over 30 years.
Elesho, is one of the veterans in the Yoruba movie industry, having been
around for over 30 years.
However, observers would note that it has been quite a while since the sharp-tongued actor graced the silver screen.
In a chat with Sunday Scoop,
he gave his reasons. “A lot of people have been asking me this question
lately. If you notice, many of the people in my category that we
started acting at the same time are no longer that vibrant in the
industry. It is because we are afraid of the type of scripts that the
children are churning out these days. Even in my house, I cannot watch
most of the films that are released nowadays because there is really
nothing to learn from them. Many of the actresses don’t dress properly.
And because we are not their parents, they don’t listen to us. You
cannot expect people whose parents are not responsible to behave well.
You cannot see people whose parents are theatre practitioners, or those
who actually trained for the job, behaving badly. Another major issue
which is killing the industry is piracy. Many of us borrow money from
banks just to shoot movies, and at the end of the day, we are not able
to recoup our funds because of piracy. There was a time I caught the
person who pirated a particular movie of mine, and he threatened me that
if I took him to the police station, he would come back for me. He told
me that he used to be an armed robber, and that it was when they killed
his gang mates that he started piracy. At that point, I had to let him
go. The government really needs to do something urgently about piracy.
If there are strong punitive measures for pirates, you would see that it
would reduce drastically,” he said.
he gave his reasons. “A lot of people have been asking me this question
lately. If you notice, many of the people in my category that we
started acting at the same time are no longer that vibrant in the
industry. It is because we are afraid of the type of scripts that the
children are churning out these days. Even in my house, I cannot watch
most of the films that are released nowadays because there is really
nothing to learn from them. Many of the actresses don’t dress properly.
And because we are not their parents, they don’t listen to us. You
cannot expect people whose parents are not responsible to behave well.
You cannot see people whose parents are theatre practitioners, or those
who actually trained for the job, behaving badly. Another major issue
which is killing the industry is piracy. Many of us borrow money from
banks just to shoot movies, and at the end of the day, we are not able
to recoup our funds because of piracy. There was a time I caught the
person who pirated a particular movie of mine, and he threatened me that
if I took him to the police station, he would come back for me. He told
me that he used to be an armed robber, and that it was when they killed
his gang mates that he started piracy. At that point, I had to let him
go. The government really needs to do something urgently about piracy.
If there are strong punitive measures for pirates, you would see that it
would reduce drastically,” he said.
Speaking on what he did for fun when he
was younger, he said, “I was born in the farm and we never went to the
club in those days. Our parents were disciplinarians, and you couldn’t
afford to behave badly. We didn’t even have the liberty to visit friends
without informing our parents. Then, whenever my father was angry at
me, my mother would also automatically be upset. I’ve never been fond of
going to nightclubs, but I unwind in my own way with friends. I also
belong to social clubs”
was younger, he said, “I was born in the farm and we never went to the
club in those days. Our parents were disciplinarians, and you couldn’t
afford to behave badly. We didn’t even have the liberty to visit friends
without informing our parents. Then, whenever my father was angry at
me, my mother would also automatically be upset. I’ve never been fond of
going to nightclubs, but I unwind in my own way with friends. I also
belong to social clubs”