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" For me, I'm always looking for opportunities to work with people who are better than me, who are more experienced than me, people from whom I can learn. And who could I learn more from than someone with an unprecedented movie star career that has spanned over thirty years whose name is Tom Cruise? "

David Oyelowo

Opportunities

Work

People

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" Love is sacrifice. "

" You really want to keep ringing the changes - you hope that your work and your choices make people excited about where you're going next and that that might be somewhere unexpected. "

" I turned down a lot of easier opportunities in order to go for the things that I really and ultimately wanted to do. And what's really nice is that it's starting to work. I've been an actor for coming up on 14 years now and the level of activity that's taking place now is a culmination of a slow cooker approach to as opposed to a microwave. "

" I believe the path to a long career is to keep the audience guessing. Daniel Day Lewis is my absolute hero from that point of view. I literally will pay to see anything he does because I know it's going to be something different than I have already seen. "

" I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person. "

" I know that I am not owed the right to make movies. I know God has given me this privileged position, and I have to work dog-hard as an actor to make the films the best they can be. "

" I like to think of myself as a physical actor. "

David Oyelowo

Actor

Myself

" People in the industry thought it was laughable that I should be going up for things that didn't clearly state what race the part was intended for. "

" Considering that I'm British and I talk the way I do, I love it when a director takes a chance on me. "

" Hollywood has done some of these films, and some of them are ginormous biblical movies, but you can tell the people making these are not invested in the truth of what those stories are biblically. It shows in the work. "

" I think it's vital to have something outside your acting to keep you rooted in the real world, and help you fill the vacuum. If you have nothing else, it can be unhealthy. For me being a Christian has been invaluable: it simply means acting isn't the centre of my life. "

" For me, I actively look for projects that showcase people of color. "

David Oyelowo

Projects

People

" 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 try as much as possible not to utter a single line that I don't believe in. "

" We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past. "

" I wasn't one of those kids who grew up watching movies thinking, 'That's what I want to do when I grow up.' I didn't really particularly know I had an aptitude for it. "

" 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. "

" As artists, our primary function is not to be educators - but we are at a time in history, where for us, our history needs to give context for stories that we hope to tell down the road. "

" I truly believe in cinema's potential for cultural impact. I have a clear idea what I want to do - to enrich people's lives. "

" 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. "

" Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice. I intend to be part of the solution and not the problem. You've just got to keep on banging out good performances. "

" Getting to do what I think was my fifth BBC drama with Nikki Amuka-Bird - we've done 'Shoot The Messenger,' 'Five Days,' 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,' 'Born Equal' and now 'Small Island' - was another highlight for me. And filming in Jamaica was great, too. "

David Oyelowo

Great

Small

" I talk to God every day. He's very real for me. "

David Oyelowo

Talk

Day

" I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school. "

" I would make the tea on a Daniel Day-Lewis set just to observe how he crafts roles like he did in 'My Left Foot.' That was the equivalent of seeing Haley's Comet for me. I just couldn't understand how that was possible. "

" It's because films like 'Selma' are so rarely made that we end up putting them under the microscope. One, maybe two, a year. As a white person, you don't have that. You have the gamut. No one says to Oliver Stone, 'Another film about Vietnam? White characters again?' "

" What I try to do with my career as an actor is what I've learned in the theater: I am rigorous with myself as to whether I'm telling the truth, and I try to surround myself with filmmakers and content creators who are also interested in the pursuit of the truth. "

" Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient when we are not being leaders or kings or in the center of our own narrative driving it forward. "

" The only way I get a leading role in a studio picture is if Ryan Gosling can't play it, which is clearly the case with 'Selma.' If this was a non-colour-specific character, it wouldn't be me. It just wouldn't. "

" Although I am a Christian, with what religion has become - a tool for so much of the bad stuff - I just say to people that I'm a person of faith. "