For years, William Benson was the actor Nollywood praised but rarely placed at the center. At industry functions, colleagues called him talented, even “perfect for that role,” but when the casting decisions landed, his name was missing.
“They give you your accolades or they praise you in the frame where they are, not outward,” he told executive producer Lilian Olubi in a conversation for Nollywire. “When the gigs come, they give them to other people.”
That season of invisibility is over. In the space of a few months, Benson is set to appear in two of Nollywood’s most discussed films of 2025: Kemi Adetiba’s ‘To Kill a Monkey’ and James Omokwe’s ‘Osamede’. The shift has been dramatic.
Where he once walked freely through public places, he now draws phones and stares. “I can’t walk into a supermarket without someone recording,” he said. “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
Benson is the first to attribute this turning point to timing. “In every man’s journey, there’s the timeline and then there’s God’s timing within that timeline,” he explained.
‘To Kill a Monkey’ became the platform that “announced” him to wider audiences, earning him recognition beyond Nollywood’s core following.
‘Osamede’, which will premiere in October at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival and has been hailed by Nollywire for its daring cultural focus, is cementing that presence.
Both projects also connect back to his training ground. Benson recalls Omokwe first pulling him aside during ‘Ajoche’, the 2018 period series, to adjust his stage-influenced performance for the camera. That adjustment became a foundation. “Ajoche was where God tested me,” Benson said. “It became my life.”
William Benson On Becoming Iyase
If his visibility is new, his method is not. Benson describes his approach with the acronym R.A.P.P.—read, analyze, practice, perform. After immersing himself in a script, he researches within his environment and history, then finds the fusion that will define the character. The final, crucial step is release: letting go of the role once the performance is done.
Iyase, the chief he plays in ‘Osamede’, was easier to inhabit because of Benson’s roots and long engagement with Edo culture. Years of writing and performing Bini plays meant he already knew the world Omokwe was creating.
What mattered most was trust. “There’s one thing about James that I love the most anytime he calls me, it’s that trust,” Benson said. “When he says William will deliver, I do everything in my ability not to fall short of that expectation.”
The result is a performance that embodies one of Osamede’s central tensions: the dangers of underestimation. “Do not underestimate the next person beside you,” Benson said of Iyase’s flaw. “Because you don’t know what they carry. You don’t know what they can do to you.”
The role also brought Benson into close collaboration with Ivie Okujaye, who plays Osamede. Their on-screen rivalry was fueled not by competition but mutual support. “She made me feel more comfortable with the lines, speaking the Bini,” Benson recalled. “Ivie is genuine. She never comes with an air of importance. She’s someone I’d forever work with.”
That emphasis on collaboration echoes lessons Benson has drawn from his mentors, Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington. Watching their films and masterclasses, he learned that competition undermines storytelling.
“What the producer or executive producer wants is a good story told in the frame of the director,” he said. “When you come with competition, you destroy that work.”
For Nollywire, Benson’s conversation with Olubi adds another layer to our ongoing coverage of ‘Osamede’: a project we have followed from its first unveiling to its role in what we’ve called a “new wave of diversity” in Nollywood epics.
Where those stories highlighted production daring and cultural scope, Benson’s perspective brings it back to the actor at the center, the years of preparation behind what can look like an overnight ascent.
“It sometimes felt like the industry didn’t see me,” Benson admitted. But in 2025, between To Kill a Monkey and ‘Osamede’, audiences do.
‘To Kill a Monkey’ is currently showing on Netflix, and ‘Osamede’ debuts exclusively in cinemas on October 17, 2025.
