Ghanaian actress and entrepreneur Beverly Afaglo has revealed the challenges she faced in the early years of her acting career, highlighting a bias in favor of light-skinned actors.
Speaking on The Career Trail program on Joy Learning TV and Joy News, she explained that many movie producers at the time preferred casting half-caste or fair-skinned actors, making it difficult for dark-skinned talents to secure roles.
“Our time, what most of the producers were doing was, you had to be a half-cast. I think Jackie Appiah was the only person because she was a star already, so they needed her,” she said.
Afaglo added that producers believed light-skinned actors looked better on screen, which influenced casting decisions.
“Producers thought light-skinned actors looked better on TV. As a result, most of them preferred casting light-skinned individuals,” she noted.
Despite the bias, she emphasized that there was no shortage of talent among dark-skinned actors.
“There was talent. It wasn’t about beauty or what you were wearing. Everybody was ready to act. People were really daring. They could master lines in a minute because when you got the chance to audition, it was your only opportunity, and the queue behind you was so long that you didn’t want to make a mistake. But the casting bias made it difficult for us to break into the industry,” she recounted.
However, she noted that the industry eventually shifted, with producers beginning to cast more dark-skinned actors when certain roles required diversity.
“It got to a time that they didn’t have a choice but to use us because most of the stories that were coming out were about kingdoms, princesses, and ‘girls-girls’ themes. You couldn’t use just one light-skinned person; you needed everybody. So they knew they had to work with us,” she stated.
