Bolu Essien, Nollywood actor and Producer at Evolving Light Studios, might not be a household name yet but her Netflix six-part series “Becoming Abi” has set a new pace in the Nollywood industry.
It is one of the first upcoming studios to debut their first feature series on Netflix, one which she shot in just 15 days taking the viewers through what she refers to as her personal journey of ‘becoming’, working a corporate 9-5 job in the city of Lagos.
The series is loosely based on Bolu Essien’s experiences as it chronicles her journey working as a young professional in one of Nigeria’s most prestigious advertising agencies in Lagos. It explores what it looks like as a young professional navigating a new place of work, co-existing with difficult bosses, exploring friendships, love, faith, and above all, striving to strike a balance in a fun and relatable way. Essien puts up a realism performance as she plays an advertising company accounting officer, Abiodun (Abi). Her co-stars include Juliana Olayode popularly known as Toyo Baby as ‘Joyce’ who played an incredible role as a supporting cast, being an on-screen best friend to Abi.
According to Essien, her passion for acting has driven her to make films, attend film school, and idolize her favorite actors and emulate their style of acting. “Acting is something I always wanted to do, I attended UK Identity school of acting, where I had already seen some actors who I do respect their style of acting, and I decided to get trained as they did.
“It’s about “becoming” and about my journey as a working professional since 2014 working for an Advertising agency, and while working I met lots of characters from clients, to bosses, to co-workers, and finding love at the office.”
According to the actress, when She decided to go back to acting in 2021, she did a short film and a documentary and then made her first major project, a tv series. “I thought, what better way to tell people that I’m back in the industry than to tell a story of the reason why I’ve been out.”
In telling a story that will relate to the audience, there is a thin line between telling the real story and telling a fictional story but Essien mentions that though the story is about her journey in the corporate world, there is also a mix of fictional content in the storyline. “The series chronicles my journey in a loosely based way, not 100 percent of it.”
Becoming Abi so far has ranked among the top 5 most viewed series by location on Netflix and Essien feels nothing but gratitude as the series has surpassed her expectations “ you don’t know how growth will come,” Essien said, “we made this series to the best quality we could with the budget that we had. So being among the top 10 series tells me that the audiences relate to the realities of the workplace in Nigeria through the characters and story. They recognize those bosses and have colleagues like that, and for that fact, makes the series trend.”
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The series had an impressive cast of Stan Nze, Seun Ajayi, Ifeanyi Kalu, Biodun Stephen, Akah Nnani, and Benita Okojie Adeyina who was a child star gospel singer in the 90s and was starring in her first feature film. According to Essien, the producers decided to cast actors who they only knew would fit the role of the characters perfectly not because they are popular and have a high social media following. Although they had a number of actors who turned down roles for the film, Essien remains with the idea that she got the perfect actors to portray the characters.
“For the role of Shade we wanted to cast someone who we know was imposing and will send a message to the room with her mere presence and so we came up with Biodun Stephen because she had the particular charisma. Also, I was very excited that I got Julianna because I knew she could bring that character to life.” Essien said.
Pitching stories to big streaming companies such as Netflix can be daunting as a new studio company, nevertheless Evolving Light Studios who are behind the series Becoming Abi managed to find their way to the platform and doing well in views exponentially. The crisp picture and colourful costume and design, and Editing were the stand out characteristics of the movie and according to Essien must have been the features that paved the way for the series through Filmone as their distributors.
“We shot the project without talking to anybody, and then sent it to the distributor telling them that we are new but this was what we were able to come out with. They liked it and sent it to Netflix, Netflix also liked it and added it to their stream of shows giving us the opportunity to tell our stories to the global audience,” she said.
The series has its strong suits in its casting, cinematography, but especially in its editing as Olasunkanmi Pedro is credited for his work on the project and Essien says that the secret to making an outstanding project is to know what is achievable. “One of the most important things to know as a filmmaker is to understand your vision but also find projects that are similar if they exist because that will set the tone of how your film will look like. You share the ideas with the pros in the technical department so they understand your vision of emulating how other productions are breaking the fourth wall and prepare ahead,” Essien said.
Being a devoted Christian who started her acting career in Mount Zion movie production, she believes that Nollywood films can thrive without the concept of adoption of nudity in their films
“ I started using my gift in the church, acting in the church and school drama groups then Mount Zion so what all of that journey has taught me is the continuous groundedness of the faith. I understand as a Christian what I can and cannot do, so I can’t kiss another man in movies or touch me inappropriately in any movie I’m associated with. So with my project I can show it’s possible to make great films without nudity.”
Though she’s proud of making a film in that short period of time, she claims she would like to make more movies with bigger budgets to get a bigger cast and crew to express themselves even more. According to Essien, a second season is in the works and hopes that the movie performs well enough for Netflix to call and sponsor a spin off.
