Contrary to what Google says, Hilda Dokubo is actually not 52 years old. In her recent interview with Chude, Hilda said about the Google age, “It’s not on Google because Google didn’t give birth to a child from my mother.” According to Hilda, she is actually a few months short of turning 50.
So how come she feels a lot older to a lot of us that grew up watching her? Well, it’s because when we were younger and first got introduced to Hilda Dokubo as an actress, she was playing roles of women that much older than she was at the time. Her characters were often mothers and were often depicted in the story to be older. So when a character is older on the page, do you know who also needs to look and act older? Yup! The actor. Hilda had to become older. The question of course now is WHY?
During her new sit-down conversation with Chude, Hilda explained why she played such mother roles when she was just a fresh graduate and the reason is very interesting. Without further ado, here is what Hilda Dokubo said.
Here is how the conversation went:
Chude: How are you over 50?
Hilda: Actually I’m not over 50. I’m like under three months old.
Chude: You know one of the things that people search most about you on Google is your age?
Hilda: Well it’s not on Google because Google didn’t give birth to a child from my mother.
Chude: I think it’s because they can’t believe it. I think two things are happening at the same time. One is you’ve been part of our lives for so long that actually some people expect you to be much older than you are. Then second, when they see you, they can’t even reconcile it with the age. So you know, we’re struggling there.
Hilda: Well keep struggling. When you’re tired, release yourself from the struggle (laughs). But the truth is you know when we first started Nollywood, not a lot of people wanted to play mom. There was me, young graduate with all the energy and enthusiasm, I wanted to be everything. I didn’t mind being my age. I didn’t mind being younger or older. So when they brought the script, it was easy for me to say do we have a makeup artist that can transform me to be older? To be able to give birth to my agemate or maybe even someone older or much older? And once the makeup artist was good, what’s my own? I carry the role, bend the voice, work on her and hit it, let’s go!
Fun fact: This is why actors like Liz Benson, Patience Ozokwo and most women you remember playing mothers back in the day seem much older to you today than they actually are. I mean, when Patience Ozokwo was in One Dollar, she was only 43. That is younger than Funke Akindele is today. Isn’t that wild?
Let me know what you think about this story? Are you surprised? Are you not? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment on my Jide Okonjo Facebook post.
