Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade Ekeinde has weighed in on the growing trend for actors being expected to dance on social media to promote their movies.
In an interview with TVC E Splash, while promoting her new movie, Mother’s Love, she revealed that she wouldn’t be dancing to market or promote her movies. She described such behaviour as unprofessional, noting how she has done a quality movie and needs to promote it.
The movie star, however, made it clear that she isn’t opposed to using dancing as a promotional tactic, but it shouldn’t be a pressure point for actors. According to her, there is nothing wrong with dancing as long as it happens organically.
She stressed that her responsibility as an actor ends with delivering a quality performance, noting that marketing and distribution should be handled by professionals in those fields.
“I’m sorry, I would not be doing the dancing. I’m very, very sorry. It’s just not me. I dance. I love to dance, I’m sure a lot of us love to dance,” she said.
I think the problem and the reason why a lot of people are kicking back at it is that you want to dance because you feel like it, not because you have to.”
There’s a difference, okay? So there’s nothing wrong with, oh, you know, you’re promoting a movie, and you guys are just having fun. That’s different,”
But when it becomes a chore, when it becomes, oh, this is what you have to do to even sell a movie, it’s not professional. I already did the project, you know, I should go around, you know, talk about the project, promote the project, and then let the people whose job is to distribute and do the advertising of the project to do that”.