Bernard Nyarko
Kumawood actor, Benard Nyarko popularly known in the industry as Bishop Nyarko has advised young directors to inculcate the habit of introducing new faces in their movies.
The father of three in an interview with flex newspaper explained that, Ghanaians are always bored and fed-up with the same old faces dominating their TV sets with regards to watching a movie. To him, he will agree that though the Kumawood movie industry has done tremendously well over the past decade, it has as well pushed people away from watching movies as directors keep repeating same faces over and over again.
Our people are sometimes afraid to take risk and change dreams. Viewers are too used to our system (way of doing movies) so what can we bring in for the people to still rally behind us? Every child will one day request from his or her mother to add groundnuts to his or her ‘koko’ just so they can have a different taste and appetite for the ‘koko’. I have been an advocate for this over the years and I am very happy some of our young directors are learning and doing so well. We should avoid the practice of always entertaining our viewers with the same old people in our movies and just as some of the young directors are doing by shooting preamble movies, there should be professionalism in every aspect of our movies. Some of our movies are just making noise and it’s high time we woke up as an industry. Watch a movie like ‘trophy’ and you will be marveled at its beauty and that is the kind of movies we want in the system. We have a very rich culture and it was being displayed better in some of the glamour movies than in some Kumawood movies” he stated.
Bishop Nyarko also told flex newspaper reporters of his intentions of getting married to his better half God willing next year and though he was a bit reluctant to mention her name, he promised to keep it a surprise to his fans and Ghanaians as there have been wild rumors about him being a relationship with a couple of women. He again advised the up and coming actors and actresses including directors to learn and work hard to change the face of the movie industry.
Bishop Benard Nyarko who before now had no dreams of becoming an actor was introduced into the act by one director Opam who came to him at his mother’s residence in Praso looking for a location to shoot his movie.
The director after Bishop had given him his mother’s hall for the location needed someone to play the role of ‘Abusua Panyin’ in one of his movies and asked Bishop to play the role of which he was a bit reluctant but delivered so well after accepting the challenge.
Bishop Benard Nyarko was still not interested in doing that because he had just returned from Europe and was in a haste to go back. However, his passion for movies aroused after the passing of Owusu Ansah and has been passionate about it till date and has starred in so many movies and won some awards in the process.