Bob Smith Jnr aka Diabolo
Veteran actor, Bob Smith Jnr popularly known as Diabolo has described actress Juliet Ibrahim’s statement that young movie makers are the ones putting Ghana on the map as myopic and presumptuous.
According to a publication by Hitz FM, Juliet Ibrahim in an interview with Joy News at the premiere of her colleague actress and producer Salma Mumin’s movie ‘No Man’s Land’ at the Silverbird Cinema over the weekend said, “We the young movie makers today are the ones putting Ghana movie industry on the map. When I visit Nigeria and I step out, people get to hear about the Ghana movie industry just because they hear that I am a celebrity from Ghana.”
Reacting to the statement on Hitz FM’s Daybreak Hitz on Thursday, Bob Smith Jnr said it was unfortunate for the actress to have made such remarks.
“Does she want to mean that her predecessors did not do enough for her to take the baton?” he queried.
“Do you remember Kwao Ansah’s ‘Heritage’ and other movies? They hit international standards even before we came and Juliet’s generation followed. ‘Kukurantumi’, ‘African Timber’ were all Ghanaian movies that went international. So I find such a statement presumptuous on the part of someone who has become a star not too long ago,” he added.
Bob Smith did not agree that the seeming absence of old actors from the scenes should warrant such a “myopic” statement. He told host, KMJ, that veteran actors did their best to sustain the industry before the current crop took over, adding that they are available for movie roles provided producers would engage their services.
“These days, most of the young people have started doing their productions. And they would want to bring the young people they know or get younger persons and make them up… So I think that Juliet is not looking beyond. She is being quite myopic. She thinks this is her time. After sometime, no production house would want to call her because of certain statements like this,” he said.
The Mama Mia actor asked that Juiliet Ibrahim apologises for her comments.
“Let her apologise. It is not the best thing to say,” he noted.
