Veteran Yoruba comic actor Yomi King, popularly known as Opebe, has opened up about the harsh realities of his early career, revealing that many of the beatings he endured on set were genuine, not scripted.
Speaking on the Behind The Fame Podcast on YouTube, the actor said his early years in Nollywood came with physical challenges, as some of his co-stars took fight scenes literally.
“Those sufferings were beyond acting; they were real beatings,” Opebe recounted in Yoruba, translated to English. “That’s what they call acting, you have to do it well and real for people to believe it happened. Baba Suwe doesn’t mind; anyone that knows him knows he will beat you directly. Ask the director.”
He recalled one particularly intense experience during the shooting of the Yoruba film Eku Meji, where a fight scene with veteran actor Yinka Quadri turned personal.
According to Opebe, tension had been building between him and Yinka Quadri due to a previous misunderstanding involving Baba Suwe, and when the cameras rolled, the punches were anything but pretend.
“That movie Eku Meji, I had a role with Yinka where he was meant to beat me,” he explained. “And you know Opebe is lame. But because we weren’t on talking terms, when the fight started, it turned into a real beating. I shouted, ‘Cut! This isn’t a movie anymore.’”
The actor said Yinka Quadri later laughed it off, telling him the incident should serve as a lesson not to take sides in others’ disputes.
“He said, ‘In your life, you won’t interfere in people’s fights again,’” Opebe recalled. “The person I supported, Baba Suwe, was laughing at me. Since that day, I learned my boundaries.”
Opebe’s revelation offers a candid look into the intensity of early Yoruba film productions, where physical performances often blurred the line between fiction and reality.
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