Actors Talk About the Scene That Took the Longest to Shoot on Nairobi Half Life

One interesting thing that came out of talking to Joseph K. Wairimu and Olwenya Maina was that there was a scene that took longer to shoot than the entire length of the finished film because a character kept messing up the lines on the first day of shooting as a gang.

Below is a transcript of their responses.

Ghafla!: “Which scene did you do the most number of times?”

Olwenya Maina: “Do not lie. We will never forgive you for that.”

Joseph K. Wairimu: “I will not lie. There was this scene that we were the whole gang and we were going to sell some car parts to John Waya. And there was that monologue I was supposed to bring in a certain way…”

OM: “Like Spartacus.”

JWK: “I was not able to bring it in the first takes and it took me a while.”

OM: “Say the time. We’re not counting takes here, I’m saying the hours.”

JWK: “For heavens sake, I’m trying to take a shortcut. But they were like…less than four hours.”

OM: “What? Let me tell you, that was our first day on set as the whole gang and it was on a Monday.”

G!: “I bet they were like, who the hell is this they picked?!”

OM: “And then we came, Mwas is here, he’s doing his thing. That particular scene, it took long. It took almost four hours so you can imagine.”

The actor who kept messing up the lines went on to win Best Actor at the Durban Film Festival.