David Oyelowo Quotes
One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.
You can’t have people curating culture in this way when we need to see things in order to reform from them.
If you merely focus on what we already know, then it's not revelatory. You may as well just go and watch a documentary or a few videos on Youtube, and you're good.
I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in the USA is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally.
Asher means 'happy and blessed' which embodies my eldest. Caleb means 'stubborn and tenacious dog' and I can't even tell you how much that is my little boy! It was a useful warning.
There's a nimble quality to the way a television actor can work. When that muscle gets strong it's a very valuable thing.
We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.
Considering that I'm British and I talk the way I do, I love it when a director takes a chance on me.
I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.
Whether we like to admit it or not, as artists, we do project our own worldview on to what we do.
I feel television is in a fantastically rich vein of what it's presenting both by opportunity to actors and to audiences.
I truly believe that we cannot come to a place of reconciliation until there is individual repentance and corporate repentance.
I am a father, I am very aware of the things that I'm putting out in the world knowing that one day my children will watch the work that I've done. I want to be able to stand by it.
I love that as a black person I've experienced not being a minority. I think that's helped me to combat the minority mentality people can have here, which can stop them scaling the heights.
I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.
I think until Britain acknowledges just how much of a presence black people had here before the Sixties, then there are certain stories that are not going to be inclusive of what I have to offer.
Because I was aspirational, I did my work, I was respectful to my teachers, I experienced a lot of bullying from the black kids. My friends were largely white or Asian.
I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person.
I know for a fact the reason I'm an actor is because one, two, maybe three people when I was younger saw something that I did, in youth theater or some small play somewhere, and said, "You're good."
One of the occupational hazards of being an actor, the reason why so many actors are insecure, is that the only way we know we're good is when other people tell us.
You're always looking for roles and other creatives who are going to be challenging to you, because you're always a better actor after the experience.
I do think how two people dance with each other is indicative of how they feel about each other. It can tell a lot more than a verbal scene.
The perception of Africa, whether in the U.S. or in Europe, is of a continent that needs help, and cannot pull itself up. That is just not true.
When I am playing a role far away from me with an accent that is not mine I always employ a dialect coach. I am almost always playing someone that has an accent that is not mine.
I know that there is still a lot of bitterness and anger, and arguably justifiably so, when you think about how brutal slavery was and what its brutal legacy still is.
Considering how pervasive interracial marriage is, certainly in American society, it is rare we get to see it depicted on film.
Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.
To break down prejudice is to get to a place of understanding, that can erode the ignorance.
People have compact to go beyond our own culture and upbringing to a degree that I think we don't acknowledge enough really.
Don't send me your script if you want me to play the black best friend; I just won't do that.
I think the notion that we are different just because of skin color, and that we should be kept apart or kept from interbreeding, is very hurtful.
Martin Luther King was a voice to the voiceless, and he did that tirelessly, and his faith was the engine to that. But he was just a human being, at the end of the day.
I seem to be able to disassociate my insecurities. I know a lot of actors - some of the best actors in the world - can't bear to watch themselves and I have to say I can't relate to that.
I have been in films before where people have been in a rush to label them as a Black film or even as a history lesson. These are ways to make the film feel niche and not for everyone.
Africa is trying to find its way back to a sense of itself, when much of that was lost through colonization.