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| Anthony Ofoegbu & Rita Dominic as Chuks and Sly in soon to be released Streets of Calabar |
It seems Anthony Ofoegbu, lead actor in Streets of Calabar felt rather nervous about ‘sleeping’ with Rita Dominic in the soon to be released Nollywood movie. We caught up with him on set the day before he was due to go between the ‘sheets’ with the AMAA 2012 winner for Best Actress and it was fairly obvious the tension was beginning to mount.
All kinds of crew from wardrobe to make-up to production
management were buzzing around him on set. But then Anthony was used to that
kind of thing, having been in the business now for over twenty years,
travelling the world performing and even touring as part of Wole Soyinka’s
theatre productions.
The majority of his work however has been based in the UK
and Streets of Calabar was his first time of working on a movie with Nollywood actors and
this is what he wasn’t used to. So
he was pleasantly surprised at the quality of performances from the likes of
Rita Dominic and even more astonished by the huge following she had garnered in
Nigeria and across Africa.
And so to suddenly find himself in bed with one of
Nollywood’s most celebrated actresses required some kind of mental fortitude.
Anthony showed me some of the exercises he uses to psych himself up for such
scenes.
“I never feel one hundred percent comfortable filming any
kissing or bedroom scenes let alone having to kiss one of Nigeria’s most
popular actors”, Anthony said. “People just don’t realise how hard it is when
you have a camera right up next to your face and a director telling you to move
this way and that and just when you think you’ve got it right the director
yells, CUT and says no, no you have to have your arm over this way or your face
has to move in that direction. So it can be quite difficult to make it look
believable.”
The following day we met up with Anthony to find out how it
all went. He had a big smile on his face and he seemed jubilant. “The scene
went very well. It was a closed set which was brilliant because it meant just
the essential crew were in the room. So both Rita and I felt much more
comfortable. Rita was terrific. She is such a professional”.
But just how was THAT kiss? And Anthony replied “I was
nervous. Rita is such a beautiful woman but she is also a terrific actor. But I
do have to say WOW, WOW, WOW and that’s all I can say”. He then ran off with a
big smile on his face ready to start preparing for his next scene.
