Iretiola Doyle Speaks About Unusual Look For The “I Am DStv Campaign” And What It Means To Her

Popular and respected entertainer Iretiola Doyle speaks about her unusual look for the I Am DSTv Campaign In this engaging chat

Que,. How was that experience like?

Ans, It was absolutely amazing. Initially, I got the script while here in Nigeria and like I often tell people the distance between the script and the screen is a wide as any ocean you can think of. Did I expect what I met? No! because reading the words right off the script, they seemed straight forward enough but then I got to set and saw the costumes and saw the scale and I knew this was going to be a fairy-tale. It was hard work, pretty intense, it was one day of work, one day of rest and then you were shooting again. My character had a lot of work to do because that axe was real. It was intense but it was interesting and well thought out.

Que, What does the I Am DStv campaign mean to you?

Ans, The DStv I AM campaign in a nutshell is if you could ever capture what it means to be a creator, an actor in 60 secs that would be it. It visualises the concept of being able to be anything, think anything, conceive anything. I am given the wherewithal to create.

Que, As a veteran in the industry, how much progress do you think we have made when it comes to telling authentic African stories?

Ans, Telling the story is first and foremost the writer’s duty, I am an actor, I am a gun for hire, I re-enact characters that are given to me.

If you ask me how well we have done as in industry in telling our own stories in the last several years, I’ll like to say we have done a lot, things have improved a lot. Everybody is proudly Nigerian; everybody is trying to tell the Nigerian story. There are many definitions of the Nigerian narrative as there are people seated, people tend to want to stamp their personal perspectives on things and that’s fine but we are very cosmopolitan, there is no situation happening anywhere else in the world that you would not find here.

Que, Inclusivity has been one of MultiChoice’s goals when it comes to their content, how successful do you think they have been with this?

Ans, On a scale of 100, I would say 150 and I can confidently back that up. Usually when I speak they say it’s because I work with M-NET, NO! I had a 15-year career before I started working with M-Net. They have done a fantastic job; they have done things that even our people who are responsible for such things haven’t done. MultiChoice is a company, a business concern but when you have a company that comes into a nation, creates a platform for people to express themselves and by so doing create jobs for hundreds and thousands of people because if you understand the business of Television and movie production, you know that it takes a small village to produce anything.

Not only that, they have go on to establish channels that are language specific, they have taken on assignments and duties that are not theirs to bear. MultiChoice, I dare say is one of the main reasons why the monopoly in Nollywood is broken. They do not care who you are, they do not care where you come from, all they want to know is if you have talent and if you are capable of delivering on the job, anybody that says anything to the contrary is just trying to be dis-ingenious. I think they have done a fantastic job!

Que, Many people see you as a serious no nonsense actress, what is one thing that would surprise them about you?

Ans, There was a character in Fuji House of commotion, called Sis Kuli Caro, who remembers that? I run the gamut, I can play hard, I can play soft, I can play corny, I can be serious, elegant, I can be razz! I am an actor!

Que, Have you featured in a movie that you wish you could go back and do all over?

Ans, None that I would go back and do over but do I mark my papers? Intensly! Everytime I watch a project of mine, that’s what I am doing, I am marking my papers. If you are honest, you will always see something or somethings that you would have wanted to do differently sometimes even better because you are in the moment and you are working and responding to stimuli, the energy you are getting from your cast mates and you watch the play back, you point out things you could have done differently and better. So yes I mark my papers, any actor worth their weight in gold should.

Que, In five years’ time, what word do you want to come to people’s mind when they think of Iretiola Doyle?

Ans, Excellence!!