Ololade: Where Is Frank Donga?

Actor, Kunle Idowu stormed into the industry as Frank Donga, a disgruntled jobseeker ten years ago. He is now Shina in Netflix's new original, Ololade. Here's how it happened.

“Can he speak Yoruba,” was the first question showrunner Olawale Adetula asked when Kunle Idowu’s name came up as a potential lead for the Netflix original, Ololade. It was an honest question, asked frankly as he, like millions of others, had come to know Idowu by a different name and persona entirely. In this series, he’d have to become a character distinct from the one the world had come to associate with him and do so convincingly for the sake of the audience and the plot. 

In Idowu’s first scene in Ololade, he staggers out of the classroom with his mistress (a co-teacher) by his side and lies to his wife on the phone. The character, Shina, is multitasking but it is Idowu’s tight facial expressions that catch the eye. The audience came for Frank Donga but he isn’t here. Not in this project. 

A lot of his previous works had required Idowu to heavily borrow elements from the running character he created in 2013, Frank Donga. Wearing a signature pink shirt, black tie and a despondent look, Donga took the audience along on his job-seeking journey which was almost never successful. The character’s constantly weary expression, his ability to over-explain with funny grammar and gaffes quickly caught on and a decade later, people struggle to see Idowu beyond the character. 

“I mean people are used to seeing me act in a comical way with very precise facial expressions and some grammatical distortions. The goofy Frank Donga character that people are used to comes with a specific set of facial expressions, mannerisms, deliberating tilting my head a certain way, adjusting my eyes to a certain brightness level, sluggish poses and over-dramatic emphasis on wrong expressions. 

“These are very specific traits that that character has. They didn’t come out to play in Ololade,” he told In Nollywood. 

In Ololade, with Donga in the rearview mirror, Idowu becomes Shina, a greedy, cheating and uncoordinated man who gets unexpected cash in his account and assumes his destiny had been restored. He begins spending lavishly and causes chaos that he doesn’t quite take responsibility for.  

The actor describes Shina as a regular guy “who is trying to survive but is also under a lot of pressure. He is a classroom teacher and everything seems to be working against him because he does not have resources. He goes to find a spiritual solution and everything unfolds from there.”

For him, playing this character was another avenue to show his range as an actor and test his ability to perform brilliantly in a Yoruba-language film. 

The beginning 

Idowu always wanted to act. As a young boy, he taught himself to observe and perform people’s mannerisms and note the way they talked and walked, their accents, expressions, intonations and dialects. 

He’d stand in front of the classroom and do impressions of lecturers in Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, Nigeria where he studied Agricultural Science. He acts, does voice overs, edits and applies himself as an all-round creative. 

In 2020, when Ololade officially began pre-production, Idowu was approached to play Shina alongside Femi Adebayo’s Lateef. He got the script, read it and came back to the showrunner with a lot of questions. He really wanted to play this character and felt it was time to show his Yoruba language and drama skills as an actor but he wanted to be sure he understood the character.

“During our first conversation, he kept asking questions about the character and I also got to ask him about his life and how he grew up. By the time we finished the conversation, it felt like we’d known each other for years and I can say that there are very few people in the industry with his level of professionalism,” Adetula recalled. 

Idowu explained that the conversation helped him understand the character and aligned his idea of what he had read in the script with the showrunner’s vision. “I read the script and was very impressed with the social commentary of everyday Nigerians it offered,” he said. “The series is a take on how people handle wealth, especially those in the lower class in society. 

“It attempts to tackle multifaceted issues around poverty, marriage and the pressures an average person faces in their quest for self actualization and success. It is very relatable. I am very big on social commentary and was really excited to come on board.”

His excitement was felt by the cast and crew with the series’ director, Adeniyi Joseph ‘TAJ’ Omobulejo describing him as a pleasure to work with. “He understands production and was the least problematic person on set. He was very invested in the character, would read lines, have conversations and ask questions as to whatever. It was amazing because I love to have characterisation conversations as extensively as possible.”

Their shared understanding of production technicalities helped build a smooth director-actor dynamic as they leaned on each other and the writers room to build a more rounded character. 

“Some of the best directors I’ve ever worked with have strong editing or technical backgrounds. It makes the work easy. Communication during production helps manage  expectations and gets everyone closer to the mark because there’s clarity and understanding. 

“It’s also why I spoke with the showrunner before production started. I wanted to understand what his vision was and the backstory of the character I was going to play. I wanted to understand his perspective because once you understand the producer and director, your performance is able to translate their vision and even make it better. 

“There are no two exact interpretations of a role or sentence, I mean even if it’s the same way you tell someone to write a story and give them a logline, two different people are going to write and approach it in different ways. Taking time to understand perspectives is always so important,” Idowu said. 

Shina, the cheerful giver (Credit: Ololade Netflix)

Criminally underrated? 

Frank Donga is famous. Millions of people have seen his short videos looking for work or the new skits that involve fighting with his landlord’s son. Flights and reservations are booked in his name no matter how many times Idowu shares his official name. It’s hard not to see how people can get confused. Frank Donga is the username of Idowu’s social media accounts.

He has transcended from a character created ten years ago to a full human personality of its own. This is how easy Idowu’s acting comes across yet many wonder why he is not in a lot of big ticket, Nollywood projects. 

Is Frank Donga famous and Kunle Idowu, the actor, underrated? 

The actor does not think so and believes every opportunity that comes his way is precious. “I don’t take anyone for granted and I don’t see any role as small because even small roles can leave big impressions on the audience. 

“Being a comic actor, and a comedian, I can also understand how stereotyping and typecasting can come very easily to us. It is easy money and you don’t have to do too much especially if you are really gifted in that aspect. You don’t have to be much.

“People just come to you because they think it’s a ready recipe. It’s a recipe that has been tried and tested, so it doesn’t fail. They want to use you in your comfort zone. If you are lazy with it and don’t find other avenues to expand or stretch, you are stuck. 

“I have been very deliberate about my projects. I see opportunities as unique chances to express myself creatively and make people happy.  In Ololade, for instance, I am not goofy or comical. I enjoy opportunities to play characters beyond and outside what people are used to me playing. I don’t think everyone gets that chance,” he explained. 

He hopes that the audience sees what he tries to accomplish in Ololade and can see beyond the stereotype his previous roles may have cast in their minds.

“I hope everything helps them to see beyond and past the comic, goofy characters they must have seen me in because I know that’s a thing with the audience and you really can’t blame them. It is what it is,” he told In Nollywood. “I expect that they will try to be open-minded and enjoy the performance.”