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SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2016 SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Body&Soul
Acting in Spartacus opened great doors Gbenga Okunola is a Nigerian- British actor who had the opportunity to act in the Hollywood blockbuster movie, ‘Spartacus’. This opened more doors for him and he was able to act alongside Hollywood actors like Morgan Freeman, Steven Seagal and Wesley Snipes. Gbenga was in Nigeria briefly for holidays and VANESSA OKWARA caught up with him for a chat where he shares his amazing journey in Hollywood and his over 20 years inter-racial marriage. Brief Background I’m mostly called TJ as an appellation. I am 48 years; I left Nigeria roughly 22 years ago. I spent over 10 years in Bulgaria where I met my wife. First few weeks in Bulgaria, I established myself as a business person and self-employed. I imported Nigerian exotic goods like Adire, wallets made with animal skin. I had a friend who was based in Bulgaria before me, so actually he was the one that set me up when I got to Bulgaria because then it’s either you’re a student or you are self-employed to get a resident permit. So I was doing that business for about two years before I got into trouble with a Bulgarian that duped me. It was my early years in Bulgaria and that was the time I met the lady that became my wife. To cut a long story short, the parents of my wife to be ac-
cepted me because there were a lot of Nigerians or blacks who would have issues with the parents of their girlfriend; some of them are racists and some are not. They asked me whether I was a student or a business man and I told them I was a business man; I even had an interview with a Bulgarian newspaper at that time. They used to come to my shop and take pictures of my stuff so they were impressed and they actually helped me. My business went down because I was duped, so I went back to school in Bulgaria. I did diploma in Business Administration and then I went into journalism. I got a job with Reuters News Agency, that’s where I started my journalism career. I was trained for six months at the news desk, I was with them for roughly two years and then I travelled to London and went to Lon-
don School of Journalism for my advanced diploma and after two years, I went back to Bulgaria. How did you end up in movies? When I was working with Reuters, I was also involved in movies because most of the Hollywood movies were mostly shot in Bulgaria at that time because it was quite cheaper for them, with low budget. A movie that would cost over two hundred million dollars would cost cheaper in Bulgaria. So during my journalism career, I got involved in movies through a friend of mine. Popular Hollywood actors like Wesley Snipes and a Nigerian British actor, Adewale AkinnuoyeAgbaje were in that movie and they needed a black guy to play the role of a police guy and that was the role I played. What’s the name of that particular movie? The name is ‘Unstoppable’. I was an extra so I didn’t really act any speaking role. So I started there and I got interested in acting. They have about seven American movie studios there in Bulgaria. I met Adewale and we became friends since we were the only two Nigerians there. He was so happy to meet someone from his place. During the same time, I got a call from another agency because my friend registered me with agencies and they said if I would like to take part in the movie ‘Spartacus’. What was it like acting in ‘Spartacus’? We had to fight with swords so we were trained for about two weeks on how to do a lot of things like ride horses and fight with swords. They needed about 15-20 black guys that would play gladiators in the movie and other extras and I was a gladiator in that movie. It was fun meeting all those great actors. So what major role did you act in that movie? Well, not really a major role per se. I was one of the gladiators. There were many gladiators, both black and white and I was one of them. We didn’t really get credit for it because there were a lot of people in that movie; roughly about three thousand but we were the main gladiators that fought in the movie. There was a lot of violence in that movie. What was training like for you? It was very tough because we were given wooden swords initially, then there were medical doctors in case anyone fell and we had professional horse riders that trained us. It was very tough and strenuous. We had this training for two weeks but some dropped because of the injuries they had. If I open my legs for you, you’d see some of the injuries. I remember a black guy broke his toe but they told us that during the real shooting of the movie, we would use real swords because ours was like iron mixed with plastic but it would still hurt you. The main actors actually used real swords. It was at that time I began to believe that most of these movies
were actually real. Did acting in ‘Spartacus’ open up your acting career? Yes, definitely! After one month and three days, I got another role and the second one I would do was with popular Hollywood actor, Steven Seagal That was also in Bulgaria? Yes, I did a movie with him before but I only played a soldier in the movie, ‘Today you die’. After that, they came back again and did ‘Submerged’ with Steven Seagal as the main actor. I was the black helicopter pilot and I had a speaking role. In the course of my acting, I also met Morgan Freeman. I met him in thes movie ‘Contract’ which I was also part of. In most roles, I play either police or soldier. I like playing tough officers. I met Morgan Freeman in that movie and actually that was the period I was about to leave for England to go and study journalism. So I wanted to have an interview with him then but couldn’t get the opportunity. I left Reuters Agency in 2001 and I joined the Voice magazine. The Voice magazine was published in Holland so I just became their Bulgarian correspondent. I wrote politics and entertainment. When I started acting in movies, I used the opportunity to interview the actors for my magazine. So for two years, I went to London to complete my course in journalism and then went back to Bulgaria again in 2008 and luckily, I met Morgan Freeman again in another movie and I told him this time he’s granting me my interview. So I did the interview with Morgan Freeman for Voice Magazine and in that movie, I also met Anthonio Banderas. He became my friend. I got his email and we exchanged some mails. He encouraged me in my acting career a lot. He asked me a lot of questions like how many movies I had done and I said roughly 13 movies. So he told me it didn’t matter whether you had a scripting role or not but I could go to New York Film Academy for three months acting course. So I did. What was the experience like? It was good because you had to do a lot of things. I wrote my own movie script and I wanted to adapt it to a movie, so I gave it to Morgan Freeman to read. It was actually about my stay in Bulgaria and the extortion of Nigerian girls from Benin, Edo State in Bulgaria to Italy and Spain; all for prostitution. There were a lot of Nigerians involved in that trafficking. I met many of them and they were in collaboration with Bulgarian mafia. It’s actually a long sad story about a girl I knew who died in the process of the trafficking; I wouldn’t want to go into it. So did the certificate you got from the film academy have any effect on your career, were you able to get better roles? Yes, exactly, not even about having your accent changed but I learnt a few things there because my teacher would say, sometimes Hollywood does not want the most handsome man or the tallest. Sometimes they can just pick somebody from Africa that has never travelled before. So after I went to New York Film Academy, I learnt a lot of things like how to be in front of the camera and not to be afraid because a lot of actors even today are scared once in a while. When I returned to Bulgaria in 2008, I was just writing my stories and working for The Voice magazine. So at the end of the day, I