Nollywood actor Lateef Adedimeji was paid ₦4000 to play a lead role.

Nollywood actor and filmmaker, Lateef Adedimeji, said that just some years ago, he was paid as low as ₦4,000 to ₦10,000 for a lead role.

He revealed this on a recent episode of the Teju Babyface Deep Dive Podcast. He stated that he started earning between ₦100,000 and ₦200,000 for roles in 2015.

“If I tell people that I wasn’t collecting ₦100,000, ₦200,000 until 2015/16, a lot of people would not believe me. Before then, the highest I collected for a lead role was either ₦4,000, ₦5,000 or ₦10,000,” he said.

He also spoke about a lead role that he did in Ilorin in 2010 for which he was paid ₦1,000. “There is a lead role that I did for 10 days that I was given a thousand naira,” he said. “I spent 10 days on that set. I wasn’t even given feeding money until day six. I have played about 8 scenes for ₦8,000. It was really a tough one.”

Adedimeji said that at the time he considered giving up acting and looking for a corporate position, but after conversations with his mentors in the industry he decided to give it another chance.

The Nollywood actor gained popularity from his role in Kudi Klepto in 2013. Over the years, he has been featured in multiple Nollywood films, including, Sugar Rush (2019), The New Patriots (2020), Breaded Life (2021), Ayinla (2021), and Jagun Jagun (2023), which won two Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Award (AMVCA) for Best Indigenous Film (West Africa) and Best Costume Design.

Adedimeji is set to feature in two upcoming Nollywood films in 2024, including Wole Soyinka: The Biopic, directed by Joshua Ojo, and Red Circle, a Nollywood film directed by Akay Mason.

Watch the full interview below: