Scarlet Gomez was talking about therapy.
For most of the past three years, if you include the 11 months she spent on set in Iperindo, a tiny town in Osun, she has become the punching bag for an old kind of anger that has recently taken up a bolder form – a backlash against the feminist agenda that has been rising in Nollywood for the past half a decade at least.
On Showmax’s hit series, Wura, Gomez plays Wura Amoo-Adeleke, a savvy businesswoman at the helm of a diamond mining company. As with many capitalist baronesses, her hand is soiled from the demands of staying rich, in this case in a male-dominated industry.
“For the longest, I have been wanting something really challenging,” she told Pulse recently. “A character that was deeper than what was on the surface. Something that will get Nigerians talking, and them, just seeing how difficult it would be to get into this character.”
Though Gomez is no stranger to the fame that comes with a career as an actress, she has been the love interest for every single leading man on the Iroko TV and iBAKA TV call sheet, appeared on Flatmate, and has 405k Instagram followers, the success of Wura was different.
Wura Amoo-Adeleke is part of a newer, female-led storytelling in Nollywood that breaks away from women going to war, grovelling for at best, unassuming aloof male love interests, that centres the women, offering nuance and modern perspectives to the characters.
Movies like Fifty, Lionheart, and more recently Battle on Buka Street have followed this ethos. But these female characters have not been as sharp-toothed as Wura. So when she showed up on the streaming app, the internet flipped on Gomez. Man's oldest caricature for a strong-willed woman – witch – was immediately cast on her.
“I have people crossing the road immediately they see me,” she said. “But for them to be doing that, it means that I settled into the character to the point where they can’t differentiate who is Wura and who is Scarlet,” she added.
But the heavy scrutiny that the character has come under, which has not gone unnoticed by her, is partly from the character being female.
“With power and money comes a lot of responsibility, and being a woman in a male-dominated industry, I felt like there were a lot of things that had to give,” Gomez said.
Since movies have been, male villains have always been treated differently and perceived differently from female villains by the public across cultures. While The Godfather, the 1972 film about the head of a mafia has been celebrated for years as a tale of a smart boss, Daenerys Targaryen, the Westerosi queen in the HBO hit Game of Thrones has been scorned as “a mad queen.” But back to Gomez and playing Wura.
“If the roles were reversed and it was a man that did the things that she did, nobody would be talking. It’s expected,” she said. “But when it comes to a woman, they want you to be very dainty, be the nurturer, be nice, and smile. They don’t see you in that power, taking charge dictating the pace, and being the head of the family, so to speak.”
Gomez has risen to lead actress in Nollywood at a time when the industry has drastically changed. The budget for movies has gone up, offering some actors a path to live at least a comfortable middle-class life.
The storytelling has also changed. With more in-depth stories, actors are able to be more creative and offer depth to their performance. That depth was also why Gomez took the role. “We are beginning to tell stories that are deeply rooted in us and our lives and things that are happening,” she said.
Playing Wura also means she had to star opposite Yomi Fash-Lanso, the veteran actor in the Yoruba language movie industry, who plays her husband in Wura. For the role, she also had to live with him while on set in the same house in Iperindo.
“I was really scared because in my mind I’m like, ‘How do I go from watching someone all my life and now having to play his better half, or working with him?’ I was like ‘How do I go about talking to this man like we’re lovers?’” she said. “He’s such a loving person. He held my hand all through and he tried to make me comfortable,” she added.
Season two of Wura is still currently streaming on Showmax. It is why she was talking about being in therapy. “It was really difficult for me to get out of that character,” she said. Fans mistaking her for the character in her personal life hasn't helped either.
But now that she is not on set as Wura, she has her plate full with other roles. “I shouldn’t be letting the cat out of the bag, but I have two major projects I’m working on. I promise to make you guys proud,” she said.