Ghanaian actress Gloria Safo has advocated for improved safety and welfare for actors and actresses while on film sets in Ghana.
Gloria Safo emphasized in an interview with TV3 that stakeholders must reassess their commitment to safety of actors, citing the film industry’s disregard for safety procedures on set.
Her concerns follow the recent death of Nigerian actor Junior Pope together with other crew members while crossing a river in the Delta State without life jackets after a movie shoot.
“As an industry, we need to learn from this incident. There are a lot of things that we take for granted. We don’t prioritize our safety or well-being at all. It’s not just going to the villages, even shooting in the urban areas.
“Someone had to die for us to realize that we are taking some of the most important things for granted. We have a lot to do,” she said on The Ladies Circle Show on May 4.
Safo, who is concerned about the risks actors take on set, called for a collective effort to prioritize safety precautions while on set.
She pointed out that when actors speak out against dangerous methods, producers and directors frequently ignore them because they are more concerned with realizing their vision than with the safety of the performers.
“We need to make a conscious effort to prioritise our safety on set. We take a lot of risks. I don’t know if producers, directors or filmmakers consider that.
“Sometimes you go on set and they are telling you to do a particular thing or go through a particular process, and you voice out, No, this is not going to help. Can we have it a different way?
“And then the producer or director will go like, ‘This is how I want it. Didn’t you read your script? Blah, blah, blah, blah,” she said.
According to the actress, she, unlike others makes it a point to speak about issues bothering her while on set as its crucial for the comfort and safety of crew members on set.
“I am someone who actually airs my views about issues when I’m on set. Any issue about costume, about food, about whatever, I will talk about it because it’s very important,” she stated.
