Playing gay role boosted my career – Actor Iremide Adeoye

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There is no denying that, despite being a make-believe, only a small number of Nigerian performers would have gladly accepted a gay character in a film in the past, maybe due to their fear of the social fallout.

Iremide Adeoye, a 26-year-old actor and digital content producer, revealed his amazement at the positive response to his character Lolu Adeleke in Wura in an exclusive interview with Premium Times.

Many people would assume that portraying a homosexual character in Nigeria would cause him to be shunned by the community, but he claimed that playing 'Lolu Adeleke' has become a pivotal high point in his career.

He shared, “When the audience can relate with the character, that’s great news for me.”

Although Iremide has been featured in Nollywood movies like ‘The Order of Things and ‘Tiger Tail’, these flicks were not enough to give him the breakthrough his career has seen since the wake of playing ‘Lolu Adeleke’, a queer character in the movie, Wura.

The fashion enthusiast and actor said his role in the series and the reception have been fantastic.

He said, “People have come to resonate more with the character, way more than I expected, and that is the joy for me as an actor when the audience can relate with the surface; that’s great news for me.

“Acting as a queer character in Nollywood as Lolu Adeleke. It has been the biggest queer representation in Nollywood on that scale, and it feels great to be one of the performers of something like that. I was expecting some backlash, of course, because acting a queer character in a homophobic country, you don’t know what to expect.

“Still, you know what to expect, but so far, so good; despite the bad and negative sides I have seen, I feel like the love has overshadowed the bad side. For me, I don’t want to focus on the negativity that comes from playing that character; the love and the people that do appreciate the work that I do is what I pay my attention to.”

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