8th June, 2017
By Funmilola Olukomaiya
Fast rising multi-talented Nollywood actor, model and video jockey (VJ), Baaj Adebule was recently featured as one of the cover stars for the June issue of The Fruit Tree Magazine.
Baaj hails from Ogun State and he is a graduate of Covenant University with a BSC in Economics.
In this issue of The Fruit Tree, Baaj opens up on his acting career, his challenges in Nollywood and more.
See some excerpts from his interview below:
Kindly tell us all you can about yourself and what you do for a living?
I am a young Actor, Film Maker, model and Host but mostly an Actor and a Film Maker. I’ve starred in a couple of movies, series and short films and I also run a Media Production outfit called House of Baaj Pictures. We received a Zafaa award for the best short film in 2015 for the film “Seeing Betrayal” which is free to watch on YouTube as well and currently working on filming a series. As a person I’m pretty much a simple guy, I love to work, I love my work and I love preparing to work When I’m not working, I love sports, adventure, travelling and most of all, I love watching movies, cartoons, anime and TV series.
I know you’re a man with many passions. What influenced your career in acting?
Like a lot of young ones, I was quite addicted to television. Even though my Dad banned me from watching it and I’d get in trouble for disobeying but it still didn’t stop me. I would spend a lot of time watching movies, cartoons and series that sometimes I wouldn’t even fully understand but I didn’t care. I would see the beauty of these creations and constantly marvel at them. Even though it took a really long time to finally gather the courage to go for it, the seed had been planted really early and it was just a matter of time.
Has it been easy being an actor in Nollywood, what difficulties did you have to contend with?
Nothing in life is ever easy and in Nigeria, everything is always hard. It just always feels like everything and anything is working against you. More so in Nollywood. The first issue was believing enough in myself and in my dream to actually go for it then getting support from my family as well which didn’t come easy at all. I worked 9-5 for about 2yrs after leaving school before deciding to go into entertainment fully which was a very risky move. My Mum especially was scared for me but she has always been a woman of faith and has always believed in whatever I choose to set my mind to so she had my back, awesome woman. Started out going for numerous auditions, I’m saying close to a dozen or more a month for about the first 3years of my career. Whilst doing that I focused on improving myself as an actor and as a person. Constantly learning, researching, rehearsing, developing new skills and reinventing myself.
Kindly give us a list of some of the movies you’ve done.
To name a few: A Soldier Story, Road to Yesterday, Four Crooks and a Rookie, 5ive, The Governor, Seeing Betrayal, Studio, Hush, etc. and a number of movies and series yet to be released.
What has been your most gratifying role as an actor? Please give reasons.
At the moment I’d have to say playing Adze Tsenogu on Hush. It was my first time playing a particular character for such a long time as we filmed Hush for about a year. And of all my projects he’s the character the fans have gravitated to the most. He has really had an impact on a lot of people’s lives which in turn has had an impact on mine.
