Ricardo Agbor has recounted how he entered Nollywood through a chance audition in 1991 rather than through connections or industry relationships. His friend Leo Marin, with whom he was modeling at the time, informed him about an audition happening at Fidelis Duker’s Fat Production office in Surulere. Unlike today’s system where actors receive personal calls for auditions, the early 1990s required physically showing up at casting locations after seeing posted notices.
Speaking on Real Life With Aunty Ayo podcast, Ricardo explained that he and Leo had just finished a modeling job when they decided to check out the audition. When they arrived at Fidelis Duker’s office, numerous aspiring actors were already waiting. The casting process involved giving three people one script, with each person reading different parts while directors assessed their abilities. Ricardo was selected and given a substantial role—a sub-lead in the movie “Visa To Hell.”
However, after completing that first project, Ricardo became disillusioned with the low pay actors received compared to what he could earn from one gold trading trip to Cotonou. Leo encouraged him to continue acting since it was something he loved, but Ricardo argued that he needed money and the filmmakers weren’t paying enough. He took a break from acting for two to three years, focusing on his jewelry business. Eventually, he returned when Sam Dede, Clara Omeruah, and other actors gathered at Fidelis Duker’s office for another production. That marked the true beginning of his sustained acting career.
Ricardo Agbor said: “Around 1991, he now said, ‘Ricardo, I heard there’s this audition going on.’ That’s Fidelis Duker’s office at Surulere. So he said we were coming from a modeling cast. So he now told me let’s go now, let’s go check. It’s not like now where they’ll call you and start telling you that you should come for this. No. Then they would have to paste and then if you’re lucky enough you walk and you come by the information about the casting and all that. So he now told me said let’s go there. So we just walked, we got there, there were lots of people. We got there and that was my first shot. I got there. We read for this thing. You read this, that one read that. And then much later you got picked and it was a sub-lead. Yeah, it was a sub-lead and that kind of marked the beginning of me coming in and the movie then was called Visa To Hell……See More
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