Veteran actor Yemi Solade has voiced his opposition to the idea that actors should prioritize church over work on Sundays.
During an appearance on the Honest Bunch podcast, posted on Instagram on Sunday, Solade recounted a 2013 experience where he was advised to instruct producers not to schedule him for jobs on Sundays due to church commitments.
He rejected the notion, questioning why religious obligations should override professional responsibilities.
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“If you see me in the church, is that we are filming. Something happened in my church. I got into the service with my wife that year, 2013,” Solade explained.
He continued, “I’ve been told in the church that I should tell producers not to call me for work on Sundays. And I cursed those pastors. It is from that thing that you said I shouldn’t do on Sunday that I put my hand in my pocket and I dropped here. The notion that if you don’t attend church once life must die, probably I’ve not seen anything change.”
Solade criticised certain church expectations, arguing that they disrupt personal and professional life: “Rather, I have peace, I do well. Because every day of my life, when I was going to church, I got messages or sort of disturbances. If you are not invited to one committee, then when will I have time to work?”
He also highlighted the lack of biblical basis for restricting work on Sundays: “There’s nowhere in the Bible that Sunday in the Greco-Roman calendar that I set aside for people to go and assemble and shout God and Jesus. And you’re telling me not to leave my house and go to where my chop is. You are here to chop on Sunday. Who are you telling me that I should tell? You want to ruin my career?”
Solade shared a personal anecdote to illustrate his point: “Let me tell you, I had this Baba who fixed my AC, and I gave him money to buy some things one day, and I was calling him, and he didn’t pick up the call. Later, he told me he was in church. I said, Baba, you’re in your 70s, see me at my age. If I say these things to you, you’ll cry. Do you know that you took my money to that church? You gave part of it; that blessing is mine now. If the prayer is efficacious, it will come to me. But it’s my own money, my sweat. And then you left your own business. You went to attend another man’s business.”
