When the death knell sounds in Nollywood, many Nigerians want to know why it tolls. Just as much for whom it does. And if you’ll do the tally, over 60 deaths of actors, directors, moviemakers, stunt men between 2023 and 2025 (minus the X deaths this year) make for curiosity. More so for the star-stricken, up-and-coming ones dreaming to rule the big screen someday.

More than 60 percent of those deaths range between ages 30 and 59. So it’s easy to see how, sometimes, downers like bad kidneys, crazy hearts, blocked arteries, angry prostates, normal cells gone rogue, and others put the frighteners on any dreamers at 34. For more effect, compare the illnesses with the jump-scare accidents, role-playing-becoming reality, and life on the fast lane generate.

Some young Nollywood actors have showed concern.

“You must be sure and show that you are also going to taste death,” Yusuf Success told Cushland. He said a fallen dead leaf is a warning to the green ones.

Adebukola Olanipekun has a different worry—the experience of people an actor leaves behind at death.  “They have families and friends that can never forget them till the rest of their lives and the role they play in the families,” Olanipekun said. “And we are also doing the same thing.”

However, these worries hardly move the young actors to consider why more of their colleagues die below 60. But Yusuf identified recklessness. “If you forget about your health, you are dead already,” she said. “Better to have a break and go to the hospital to check your BP.”

But Olanipekun strained to identify another cause of death before 60: living fast and dying young.  Many actors have tried chasing their tails, and some have come to realize the fake life most celebs try to live. The realization dawns on them when they fall sick, and have to hit GoFundMe, or pinch their fans.

Advice: Nollywood acts not dead yet could heed Yusuf; those pedalling down the fast lane should get a breather.