{"id":272424,"date":"2011-01-05T17:42:28","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T17:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/?p=44905"},"modified":"2011-01-05T17:42:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T17:42:28","slug":"nollywood-has-failed-me-steph-nora-okere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/01\/05\/nollywood-has-failed-me-steph-nora-okere\/","title":{"rendered":"Nollywood Has Failed Me \u2014 Steph-Nora Okere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_44906\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44906\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-44906\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/01\/05\/nollywood-has-failed-me-%e2%80%94-steph-nora-okere\/steph-nora-okere-2\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44906\" title=\"Steph-Nora Okere\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Steph-Nora-Okere.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-44906\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nollywood Has Failed Me \u2014 Steph-Nora Okere <\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThere are two Stephs in Nollywood that are popular. Before Stephanie  Okereke, there was a Steph-Nora Okere. Trained as\u00a0 theatre artiste from  the famous University of Ife, the Owerri-born actress garnered fame and  fortune at the nascent stages of Nollywood but it looks like she has  started singing a different song as her fortunes both as an actress and  as a practitioner in Nollywood has nose-dived. Unlucky in love, Steph,  as colleagues call her, has had relationships, some people say, with the  wrong men.<br \/>\nThe list includes Tony One Week, erratic and violent Jim Iyke who  used to batter her on the streets and finally a marriage with Yoruba  heartbreak kid Lanre Falana, which finally led to what she has called a  marriage in process that never came through. Now free from all  enncumberances. Steph seems to be getting her groove back. We spoke to  Steph a few days ago and the actress gave us some insights into what she  had been up to in the past few months.<br \/>\nBEING one of the few truly trained professionals in Nollywood, has Nollywood met your expectations<br \/>\nAt  the beginning yes, Nollywood seemed like it would meet my expectations ,  my colleagues and I had hopes that we would quickly climb up the  lather, but the intrusion of massive unprofessionalism into all facets  of Nollywood has long truncated that growth, so as it is am not  impressed at all and my expectations have long been quashed. Our dreams  and ambitions seem dwarfed by this development.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nA lot of  people are singing songs of praise with the level where Nollywood is  now. We are regarded as the second largest movie producing culture in  the world. Are you happy with that?<\/strong><br \/>\nI wonder what is there  to be happy about. I wonder why we are celebrating mediocrity. Which  Nigerian movie has won anything on the international stage. Is it not  Indian movies that are winning International laurels. Those who are  rejoicing that we have been voted as the third largest movie producing  culture in the world, have they asked about the quality of work we are  doing or is it only about the quantity. They did not say we are the  second \u201cBEST\u201d movie producing culture but the second \u201cLARGEST\u201d,  producing nonsense. Listen, where Nollywood is now is expected knowing  that we came from nowhere to get to where we are now. The stage we have  gotten to is such that we have to decide to either kill the industry or  take a rain check and know how to salvage it.<br \/>\n<strong>It looks like you have not been active in the industry for a long while now. What happened?<\/strong><br \/>\nHave  been around the industry but I have been taking my time to study what  is going on and looking for a way to make myself relevant in the  industry in that, I am repackaging all the stuff I have to offer so that  I do not end up like the rest of the people in the band wagonof  mediocrity. The works I am preparing to do now are of international  standards. So let&#8217;s just say I have been around but just repackaging my  stuff, taking a rain-check to know exactly what to come out with. I am a  trained professional don&#8217;t forget that. I have to hold up my training  differentiate myself and set standards for others to follow.<br \/>\n<strong> Are you saying that right now there are no standards for the industry to look up to?<\/strong><br \/>\nYes,  I strongly believe it is time for us to come back in truth and put down  standards that will sustain the industry and also lay standards for  whoever intends to join Nollywood. Not what has happened in the past  where groups of people come together for their personal interest in  pretence that they want to restructure the industry. It is not so  difficult to restructure the Industry if we all are sincere to  ourselves. If we are agree that there is a need to do\u00a0 things better  then all hands should be on deck with a sincere heart and if we do not  do that pretty soon, some other interested bodies might do it for us and  trust me, we will be worse for it.<br \/>\n<strong>What other interested bodies?<\/strong><br \/>\nGovernment, the corporate sector, outside interests, business that do not understand what we do.<br \/>\n<strong>Is that not what Nollywood has been advocating?<\/strong><br \/>\nYes,  but not when we the practitioners will not be in control of opur  destinies and our futures. Not when we would only become hired hands in  an industry we helped build and brought to international attention and  recognition.<br \/>\n<strong>What are the major challenges you have faced in your Nollywood walk?<\/strong><br \/>\nMy  major challenge at the beginning was basically proving myself to an  industry that was just kicking off and that I have tried to do over the  years with my works , at each stage of my career, I have had to prove my  onus and as it stands, I don&#8217;t think I have done badly, but presently,  the challenge I am facing is how to make further positive impact on the  industry such that my presence will be relevant now and well after I  have left the industry, something like leaving your footprints on the  sands of time and these are the reasons why I have taken a break and  gone back to the drawing board.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nIt looks like a new  trend is emerging where actors are becoming musicians and musicians are  looking for ways to get involved in Nollywood. What do you attribute to  that? Is it the restlessness of the artistic spirit or is it the need to  make more money?<\/strong><br \/>\nYes I have noticed it. All I have to say  is that, a lot of people have some burning desires inside them to do a  lot of things especially as an artiste, so whatever input any of my  colleagues have made into the arts apart from acting, I it is believe is  borne out of that desire to do stuff and not necessarily because they  are no longer relevant to Nollywood. By the way, I am presently in the  studio working on my music, and if you must know, I was into music long  before I went into acting and this part of me, I intend to share with my  fans.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nYour marriage broke up sometime back and you have never told us the reasons why that happened<\/strong><br \/>\nWell,  as u said, I have not really come out with the main cause of the  breakup, well this is borne out of the fact that I didn&#8217;t want to rush  into making statements to the press that I am not sure about or that I  may regret in the future. Without making too much explanation or  excuses, I would simply tell you that what I had was a marriage process  that was truncated and I intend to grant a proper interview on that.  That is why I have taken my time to be careful on what I say about that  relationship for now.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nSo many Nollywood marriages are breaking up. is it the pressures of the work, the lives artistes live or what?<\/strong><br \/>\nMarriages  are breaking up in Nollywood same way it is breaking up world over.  Truth is, it is not just a Nollywood thing, it is a trend world over,  mainly because of economic changes. A woman can no longer sit down at  home waiting to be fed. One income families don&#8217;t work anymore. Women  need self fulfillment and actualization. That challenges the men. This  is the reason you go into a court and you see lots of couples going in  for divorce and hey not all of them are from Nollywood, it&#8217;s just that  folks in Nollywood are popular figures that get their stories put into  the public by the press.<br \/>\n<strong>Looking at yourself and the life you have lived. Would you like to change anything about yourself?<\/strong><br \/>\nNothing  my brother, absolutely nothing, because I believe God made me the way I  am for His and the purposes of my life and He allowed anything I have  encountered in life, whether good or bad, to happen for a purpose, so I  have no regrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two Stephs in Nollywood that are popular. Before Stephanie Okereke, there was a Steph-Nora Okere. Trained as\u00a0 theatre artiste from the famous University of Ife, the Owerri-born actress garnered fame and fortune at the nascent stages of Nollywood but it looks like she has started singing a different song as her fortunes both [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nollywood Has Failed Me \u2014 Steph-Nora Okere - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/01\/05\/nollywood-has-failed-me-steph-nora-okere\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Nollywood Has Failed Me \u2014 Steph-Nora Okere - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"There are two Stephs in Nollywood that are popular. 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