Nollywood producer cum actress, Biodun Stephen, has responded to critics blaming movie producers for kissing scenes in Nollywood and attributing it to the crash of marriages among filmmakers.
Naija News reports that Biodun, speaking in an Instagram video, said actors and their spouses are fully aware of the demands regarding the profession and should take responsibility for managing their relationships.
The filmmaker said it is not a producer’s responsibility to protect any actor’s marriage and directors should not be blamed for challenges in actors’ marriages following the scenes.
According to Biodun Stephen, while some actors decline kissing scenes due to personal beliefs and directors work around it, others have no objections.
She added that a producer’s duty is to protect actors on set and present them respectfully on screen, not to salvage their marriages.
She said, “There’s this lady that always has a mouth for Nollywood. She said something about the kissing, Nollywood, and producers. And she said something about producers taking things easy on having actors kiss because we’re possibly ruining their marriages.
“Kissing is not really part of my craft because I want you people to watch my movies with your children but that doesn’t mean that when an opportunity comes for it, I won’t embrace it. I will embrace it as long as the story calls for it.
“One of the things we’re selling actors on screen is believability. You’re selling an emotion, you’re selling a chemistry, you want people to believe this love so that they can root for it.
“Yeah it can be done without intense kissing but when you are now bringing things like the marriage don’t work.
“I think that responsibility is on the actor who has chosen the profession and also on the spouse of that actor who has accepted that my spouse is an actor and so therefore things like kissing and rubbing might occur.
“And they must have made their peace with it. That responsibility is not my responsibility.
“We have actors who will say to you that I’m sorry, I can’t kiss for personal beliefs and there are actors who say I don’t mind kissing.
“My job as producer or director is to protect you as actors. My job is to present you properly to the audience without mailing your person but my job is not to break your home because that’s not on me. I did not put a gun on your head to work for me.”
