In the season two finale of ted lassothe character of Toheeb JimohSam Obisanya is standing in front of the empty window of the shop he just bought. “What will you wear?”asks the woman who gave the football player the keys. “A Nigerian Restaurant”He replies with a broad smile.
This moment is something of a turning point for Sam, a sign of his ambition and growth from the young man viewers met in the Ted Lasso pilot and that he had just arrived in Britain.
That’s why it’s so appropriate now Jimoh, 25, has chosen Enish, a West African restaurant in Brixton, South London, very close to the actor’s childhood home, for an interview. Wearing black overalls and matching cargo pants, and eating rice and ayamase, a spicy meat stew, Jimoh said Sam had a “beautiful rainbow” in the last two seasons.
“If you’d told me at the beginning of season 1 that Sam was going to be an entrepreneur, one of the stars of the team, and he’d be dating the boss, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said. Sam also went from being a supporting character to one of the series’ protagonists.and his positive attitude and strong work ethic have made him a fan favorite.
The last two years have been good for Jimoh toowho graduated from drama school in 2018. Last year she was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Samand this month he can be seen on screen in two major series: Season 3 of Ted Lasso, which began streaming on Apple TV+ on March 15, and The poweradaptation of the British writer Naomi Alderman’s dystopian novel of the same name, which Coming to Prime Video March 31st.
his new series
The power is a science fiction drama that asks what would happen if women had to physically dominate more than men.
Jimoh plays Tunde, a young journalist who documents the revolutions that occur as women gain new strength, and his character embodies the vulnerability of men before this female power.
Tim Bricknell, executive producer of The power, said in an interview that there were two facets of Jimoh “that were perfect for this particular role.” The first, he said, is the actor’s “natural charm,” which is integral to Tunde’s character.
But the second is Jimoh’s curiosity: “He wants to know what everyone on the team is doing and always ask questions. This is very rare in successful young actors.which makes him perfect to play a reporter.
In preparing for the role, Jimoh talked to his friends “about the routines they have to make sure they’re safe when they go out.”.
he recognized it “I was a little embarrassed, because I hadn’t noticed”. In his opinion, the book and the television adaptation contain “a lot of really interesting questions about the relationships between men and women, about society’s relationship with power and how power corrupts people.”
both in The power as in ted lasso, Jimoh plays a Nigerian. The actor – whose your parents are Nigerian and that you spent some time there as a child— he’s drawn to roles like these that allow him to “talk about my family and my culture,” he says.
But he also likes to cast roles that explore broader social issues. His first major acting role came in 2020when he acted Anthonya 90-minute BBC drama about Anthony Walker, a teenager who was murdered in a racist attack in England in 2005.
“You can tell from the roles I’ve played in my career that I too was a young man who would have gone into politics if I hadn’t been an actor,” says Jimoh.
From politics to action
She studied politics in her last years of high school, along with law and history, and acting was her “easy secondary subject,” she says. She didn’t consider it a career option until a teacher suggested he might be an actor.
“I thought you must have lived in Los Angeles and been doing it since age 4, or have parents who do,” says Jimoh. She didn’t know anyone in the acting business and her parents worked in hospitals.: the father a waiter and the mother a health assistant. “All the adults I knew had very, very normal jobs, and that was the plan.”
Soon he starred in youth productions and he was an usher at the Young Vic theatre. One day, sitting across from his friend at school during his lunch break, Jimoh threw his history homework in the trash and decided to get serious about acting. “I refused to have a plan B”she says, adding that “he harassed my teachers to see my audition speeches.”
In a school bulletin of the time, one of Jimoh’s teachers wrote: “In all the years I’ve taught, I had never met someone who had so much raw talent. at such a young age” like Jimoh.
Jimoh he graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a degree in dramaboasting many renowned alumni including Orlando Bloom and Michaela Coel.
actor and comedian Brett Goldsteinwho plays former footballer Roy Kent ted lassowho is now close friends with Jimoh, said believe it the young actor’s success is due in part to his selective approach from work. “He turns down any job he takes,” Goldstein, 42, said in a recent interview: “He has integrity and wants to do good things.”
In between bites of ayamase, Jimoh said he hoped future opportunities would allow him to show different sides of himself. “I’m just interested in what that young man’s story is and why it’s interesting to tell it,” he said of how he chooses his interpretations of him. “There’s a lot of work out there and I just want to dive into it all,” he acknowledged.
Starting in June, he will star in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Almeida Theater in London. For him, the meaning of the work lies in “believing in young people and in their feelings”, and he remembers having a friend who committed suicide when he was 15 years old.
“When you’re young you feel things so deeply,” she said, “and older people can look at it and think it’s a little naive, but it leads to stuff like that.”
At the moment, Jimoh says he’s often forced to act like Sam when he meets people who recognize him from the series. But there’s more to me than the perfect Ted Lasso”, she said, ‘and I’m excited to show that part of me too.
Source: Clarin
