Actress Stella Damasus reveals how To Kill a Monkey revived her career

By Damilola Akinwale –

Veteran Nollywood actress Stella Damasus has revealed that Kemi Adetiba’s Netflix series, To Kill a Monkey, revived her career and changed the perception of her among audiences and industry experts, despite not being the first choice for the role.

Damasus made the disclosure during her recent appearance on Pulse Old vs New, while reacting to clips from her old and new movies. She said she was not the initial choice for the character Nosa, which was originally scripted for a younger actress.

However, everything changed when she submitted a self-tape less than 24 hours before the audition deadline, prompting the production team to rewrite the character for her after reviewing her audition. She added that she was in the United States at the time and was assisted by a colleague in Nigeria to submit her self-tape after casting for the project had already been completed.

The veteran actress said she still gets recognised by fans who quote lines from her character, Nosa, adding that the reaction extended beyond Nigeria to countries including the United States, Canada and Ireland.

Speaking about the challenges of the role, Damasus described the production as demanding and said it pushed her to revisit her craft despite her experience. She credited her co-stars, including Lilian Afegbai, William Benson, Bucci Franklin and Sunshine Rosman, for raising the standard on set.

Reflecting on her previous work, Damasus said the 2005 movie The Widow, in which she played a grieving wife subjected to emotional and physical torture by her husband’s relatives following her husband’s sudden death, was one of her most challenging roles and changed her career overnight, both in Nigeria and abroad.

Recounting the early years of her career, she said authenticity made her and her colleagues stand out. She added that acting alongside Omotola Jalade and Genevieve Nnaji earned the trio the nickname “the Big 3”, as they stayed true to themselves without competing with one another despite the challenges female actresses faced in breaking through at the time.

“I’m going to assure you, we were not doing it because of the fame or the money. There was no social media to tell us how big we could get. We did not know,” the veteran said.