RMD: I lost weight for a movie role but people said I was sick

Richard Mofe-Damijo, a veteran actor, says he deliberately got emaciated two years ago for a movie role and not because of an ailment.

The actor’s drastic weight loss was a major subject of discussion and remained on the entertainment news cycle for months.

Series of speculation arose in an attempt to determine what could have led to the shrinking of the actor’s body size but he remained mute on the matter — until now.

Mofe-Damijo, in a chat with Punch, said the movie for which he lost weight — Oloibiri — was to create awareness to the degradation happening in the Niger Delta.

The actor’s character was ‘Gunpowder’, a militant leader.

RMD said: “I lost weight for the movie. At the time the movie was shot, I had to lose at least 20kg. Before we began to shoot the movie, I was weighing 120kg but by time we were shooting the movie, I weighed about 98kg.

“It was during that period that people thought I was ill. I did not say anything because it was not their business. It is the same people who said I looked sickly that are now saying that I am looking young and fine. If you answer everything that people say about you, you will not progress.

“I am from the Niger-Delta and I understand the level of degradation going on in my region. I was the commissioner for culture and tourism and what I did mostly was to try as much as possible to get young people into the arts and away from militancy. I did a lot of talent hunt show just to get them occupied.

“I took time off to do the movie and it was in the latter days of my service as a commissioner that the movie was shot. We used real guns but blank bullets for the movie. It is not true that Nollywood only uses fake guns for their projects; it is the level of your production that would determine the type of props you use. It would just cost more money to use the real deal.”