Nollywood actor Deyemi Okanlawon has opened up about a significant pause in his acting career, revealing that he temporarily stepped away from the spotlight due to his wife’s concerns.
In a recent interview with Teju Babyface, Deyemi discussed the journey of leaving his corporate job to pursue a career in acting, shedding light on the challenges he faced along the way.
According to Deyemi, while his wife initially supported his decision to pursue acting, she became increasingly uncomfortable with his career path after a few years.
Despite their agreement for him to act for only one year initially, Deyemi found himself drawn into the industry as more opportunities arose.
He said: “I remember sitting my wife down. We got married in January, this was August. I sat her down and said this is what is going on. And I am scared. We talked through it and I assured her that look, we had some money here. I have invested some money over here. I am kind of good for us over one or two years.
“But I am still scared. She reminded me one night and she said ‘I have watched you shoot from 7 am to 7 am the next day and you were more alive at the end of that 24-hour shoot. This is what you obviously love to do. And I see you wake up and try to go to work dragging yourself. Maybe you should do this’. With that, I was emboldened to make that move.
“I did the first gig. The next gig came. And what I thought was going to be a year, I actually kind of said ‘babe let us try this thing for a year. So after one year, the jobs fell into the next year. It has been 10 years going into 11th.
“In the middle of the fifth year, my wife woke me up in the middle of the night and said ‘young man, this is not the deal. What is happening?’ I was like it is working.
“I have noticed for the first, second years… I asked for some time. So in 2019, I quit acting. I picked up my resume and I went back to work. I was hired as the head of marketing for Silverbird film distribution. I go back into marketing. I did not tell anybody I was not acting anymore. People call me and I just said I am not available.
“One of the reasons why I left apart from the fact that my wife was not comfortable was that it felt like something was not working. It was very frustrating. She wanted the change. I saw I needed the change. Working with one international streamer was the plan moving forward.”
