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By Publisher<\/p>\n
Star actress, Genevieve Nnaji, has given reasons she shunned opportunities to join Hollywood but preferred Nollywood instead.<\/p>\n
Genevieve spoke at the 2024 AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum in the Bahamas.<\/p>\n
According to her, she realised that she was viewed as a commodity when she wanted to join Hollywood.<\/span><\/p>\n Consequently, she changed her mind and decided to focus on promoting Nollywood instead of pursuing a Hollywood career because they were interested in exploiting her talent and African stories for their benefit.<\/p>\n The elite thespian added that her major interest was to build a strong local film industry in Nigeria that could tell their own stories, and expressed her belief that Nollywood had the potential to be as successful as Hollywood and Bollywood.<\/p>\n \u201cI could have gone to Hollywood a long time if I wanted to, but I had a dream to build an industry in Nigeria that could drive home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I always believed in that. I always knew that we were capable of actually owning an industry like that that told our story for our people.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted that. I respect what Hollywood is doing. I respect what Bollywood is doing and I felt like Nollywood had an equal chance at it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo when I found it wasn\u2019t quite what they had in mind I was like I\u2019m just going to wait this out and the Covid happened and the worlds switched at that point and Africa sort of became it.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharing her experience while seeking partnerships with Hollywood after the success of her 2018 film, \u2018LionHeart\u2019, Genevieve said she discovered that Hollywood stakeholders saw her as a commodity and were mainly interested in exploiting her talent for their benefit.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time, I realised I was a commodity. I thought, you know, given what I had done with Lionheart, and all of that, I was going to have an opportunity to do more,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting there and having the kind of support that obviously CANEX is bringing on board, but I thought I could find it in Hollywood. That was not quite the case.<\/p>\n \u201cThey wanted what I had but for their benefit. It was all about their story.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all about how, even if it was our story, I could make it more authentic to their own understanding of whatever Africa is because they did have a lot of literature in their archives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Publisher Star actress, Genevieve Nnaji, has given reasons she shunned opportunities to join Hollywood but preferred Nollywood instead. Genevieve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[64,61,63,62],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-style","category-news","tag-bollywood","tag-genevieve-nnaji","tag-hollywood","tag-nollywood"],"yoast_head":"\n