Nollywood actor and filmmaker, Femi Adebayo, has explained that he abandoned legal practice for acting in 2005 because the entertainment industry offered better financial rewards and greater personal fulfilment.
Adebayo, who was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2003, said he practised litigation for about two years before deciding to pursue acting and film production full-time.
He disclosed this during an interview on the Afrobeats podcast which was published on Saturday, where he spoke about his career, his upbringing in an entertainment family and his transition from law to filmmaking.
The actor described acting as a hobby that eventually became his profession, saying he discovered that he was more passionate about it than the legal career he had studied for.
“It was actually hobby turned profession for me. Acting was a hobby because you want to do what daddy does when you are young.
“But I realised that it was paying more and I felt more passionate about it. I feel happy when I do that more than the law that I went to school to study,” he said.
Adebayo said he had appeared in court and handled litigation cases before he eventually left the profession in 2005.
“I was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2003. I did litigation practice, stood before the court of law and did that for about two years. Something kept dragging me to the acting world, so I gave up in 2005, dropped the wig and gown and went fully into acting and producing,” he said.
He also revealed that his father, veteran actor Adebayo Salami, popularly known as Oga Bello, had initially been pleased with his decision to study law because it was a career he had wanted for himself.
According to him, his father could not pursue legal studies because his family lacked the financial resources to send him to school for the course.
“When I said I wanted to study law, he was happy because that was his dream. Eventually, when I pulled out from law, it was in between being happy that somebody was taking after him in the acting world and at the same time dropping the wig and gown that he had wanted to hold,” he said.
Adebayo added that his father eventually became grateful for the path he chose.
The actor has worked across different aspects of filmmaking, including acting, producing, writing and directing.
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