Jim Iyke, a Nigerian actor, has disclosed that he and some of his colleagues were formerly barred from participating in movies.
This, he claims, is due to his comments about the necessity for producers and directors to start paying performers what they’re worth.
Speaking at the 2022 International Youth Empowerment Summit, Jim Iyke said that during that time, celebrities’ influence drove up movie sales, but it didn’t show up in their paychecks.
He said that the producers were trying to fatten their bank accounts by demanding that the actors be paid more than they were.
But, “we got banned because they said I engineered and orchestrated a group that was asking for too much money. Isn’t that ridiculous,” Jim Iyke asked.
“So apparently, our producers were becoming multimillionaires and our actors were struggling, so I called a group and I said we need to change this structure,” he continued.
The well-known actor claimed that the producers could not exist without the performers. He added that because actors are the industry’s faces, there needed to be a balance in producer and actor salaries.
“Why is the gab so distant, why is there a total disconnect in the wealth appraisal between us and them? So I said everyone should start asking for more money. They got together and banned me for two years,” Jim Iyke stated.
He continued, “when they banned us for two years, they brought in a new crop of actors to take our place.”
The new actors, according to Jim Iyke, were unable to create the same impact as the old ones, owing to the fact that they did not have the same level of audience influence.
“They could not make the one million sales and two million sales we were making at a snap with our movies. So they came back to bring us back,” Jim Iyke added.
He told the young people present at the occasion that it was critical for them to believe in themselves.
Jim cited himself as an example, revealing that he couldn’t book a significant role for the first three years of his career and turned down many minor jobs that were offered to him.
“Three years for a guy that just left home is a long time to be broke. At some point you would bend, you would compromise, but my self-value was way too high, it wasn’t about money.”
“I just knew that this is the standard I had set and I wasn’t going to relent, not for anybody not even for myself. So no matter what I was going through, it was just a question of time. The overriding factor is your total belief in yourself,” he advised.
Source: myjoyonline.com
