My Role in Melita Movie Was Challenging, I Struggled With Yoruba Dialect, But Overcame- Adenike Dimeji-Joseph

By Oluwafemi Dosu

A female actor, Adenike Dimeji-Joseph has opened up on how her role in Melita movie was Challenging and how she struggled with the Oyo-Ibadan dialect.

She disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Gospel Film News on set of Melita.

The female actor who played the role of Beatrice which is in the local Oyo-Ibadan dialect referred to as “Bea” and Bea’s local name is Fafunke according to the script reveals that the role was challenging for her because of the dialect. According to her, she speaks Yoruba but not that kind of Yoruba (the Ijinle yoruba).

“When I first received the script, I struggled with the reading, I had to call one of the production crew that this script is hard for me, she just encouraged me to go ahead. Well, I was able to scale through reading it and acting it became even more challenging. I had to repeat most of my scenes because I wasn’t picking the local dialects very well but in all it has been an interesting one for me,” she disclosed.

Beatrice, according to Melita script is a character that became born again when the missionary came because the film is dated back to the 18th century when the missionary first arrived in Nigeria and Beatrice is one of the followers of the white men that came around, she gave her life to Christ, but then, she has love for the prince of Akutiku, Prince Aderopo. Even though Bea want to be the wife of the prince, but she was being advised against it as a child of God that she can’t be of equal yoke with unbeliever, but the wet and prestige of being a queen pushed her into marrying the prince and becoming the queen at the end of the day, and she lost her life in the process.

Dimeji-Joseph told Gospel Film News that the character “Bea” teaches her one thing that you can’t seat on the fence as a child of God. “If you belong to the camp of God let everybody know you belong to the camp of God and if you are at the other side, let everybody know you are at the other side,” she advised.

Speaking on her relationship with Melita movie director, Reverend David Kola Okeowo, she revealed that the director has been a father to her, she knew him back as 1995 when she was in school, and the director was her audit lecturer and her project supervisor and they’ve started stage play together then in school.

She stressed that David Kola Okeowo has been a father, mentor to her, and it’s a privilege working with him again. She further stated that: “It’s my first time on set, I’ve always been involved in stage play in churches and I’ve always enjoyed that but there is a huge difference between working on the stage and being on set, it’s so challenging, I was on set for some days and I can tell you, my body was telling me to go and rest already but I enjoyed it all the way. He is a perfect director and made it quite easy for me to sail through it, and if he calls me again I will be back.”