Bimbo Thomas: Why I Stepped Back From Acting

Popular Nigerian movie actress Bimbo Thomas has explained why she recently stepped back from taking on acting roles, revealing that she wanted to avoid being stereotyped.

Speaking on the first episode of the Old secret podcast, Bimbo said she felt producers were trying to confine her to a particular type of character. In her words:

“I felt they wanted to box me, they wanted to put me in a corner.”

The actress stressed that she is versatile and can easily switch between different roles. “One minute I’m speaking phonetically, the next I do ghetto and so on,” she explained.

While Bimbo is well-known for her ability to perform in pidgin English, she noted that it is not her natural way of speaking. She confessed:

“I wasn’t born in the barracks, so pidgin isn’t my thing,” she said.

Bimbo Thomas gained widespread recognition for her performance in Omo Ghetto and its sequel, Omo Ghetto: The Saga. She has also featured in numerous Yoruba and English-language movies.

A graduate of Creative Arts from the University of Lagos, Bimbo has been active in the Nigerian film industry for over a decade and continues to be celebrated for her talent and versatility.
Bimbo Thomas

Not only actors experience stereotype, in June 2024, Biodun Stephen spoke on movie stereotypes which has become the order of the day, now more than before.

The filmmaker in an interview with Pulse also acknowledged the fact that filmmakers keep making the same kind of movies. In her opinion, she shared why it has become a norm.

Biodun Stephen attributed the reasons simply to success. She asserted that once filmmakers notice a certain type of movie gains commercial success, they start to produce same type of movie simply to gain from it financially without finding out what precisely led to the film’s success.