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" 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. "

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" We start 'The Butler' in June and that's incredibly exciting for me because I get to work with the amazing Forest Whitaker again. It's a phenomenal script and a great, great role - I play his son. Oprah Winfrey is his wife and my mother. My character is a radical civil rights activist. "

David Oyelowo

Great

Work

" A film centered around the Second World War with a predominantly white cast would not have the pressure on it that 'Red Tails' has. "

" I love tennis, love it! "

" 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. "

" My grandfather was the king of a region in western Nigeria, where I had the privilege to live for seven years while growing up. But what we think of as royalty in the U.K. is very different to royalty in Nigeria: if you were to throw a stone there, you would hit about 30 princes. "

" 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. "

" I will, till the day I die, be an advocate for the d-word: diversity. "

" 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 one of a generation brought up on television whose acting is more 'naturalistic', whereas with some of the older generation it's more heightened. But I think there's room for both styles. "

" I grew up watching period dramas, as we all did in the 1980s and '90s - endless adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens - and I loved them. But I never saw anyone like me in them, so I decided to find a story to erode the excuses for me not doing one. "

David Oyelowo

Excuses

Story

" Not every film I do is going to be like 'Selma,' but every film I do can be edifying, can be something that points toward I believe to be true. I'm not one to shy away from darkness in movies as long as there is light. "

" One of the things the BBC does better than anyone is period drama. "

" If you feel like the beginning of your history is rooted in slavery, that really, I think, messes with your sense of self, your self-esteem, and your self-worth. "

" We all have cultural bias, racial bias. One of the difficult things around this subject matter is to deny that we have places we go to subconsciously, and unless you consciously decide that that's wrong and you've got to do something about it, especially if you're in a position of power, it won't change. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I had always known that I couldn't play Dr. King purely out of my own ability as an actor. When you look at him give those speeches, you can tell that he is taken up by something other than himself. He is flowing with an anointing that is directly from God. "

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

" 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. "

" I'm not for one second condoning the actions of terrorists at all, but I do think there's a kind of terrorism that the media carries out on its own citizens, certainly in this country - and it's fear. "

" In my time since moving to the United States, I've found that there is a dearth of great writing for black people. There are stories that depict us in a way that isn't cliched or niche, and that a white person, a Chinese person, an Indian person can watch and relate to. Those are the stories I want to be a part of telling. "

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

" I admire many actors, though I don't think there's anyone whose career I would want to mirror sort of by the beats. What I'm really looking to do is constantly defy expectations. I'm very curious to see if you can actually have a character actor and a movie star's career combined. "

" 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. "

" I find that male directors are more interested in what the film looks like as opposed to what the film is about emotionally. My job is not to make the film look pretty, and I don't feel drawn to making myself look pretty within the film. "

" We've had so many faith-based movies that I think are sub-par; I almost want a new phrase for them. "

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

David Oyelowo

Actor

Myself

" 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. "

" People always ask me, 'Why so many historical dramas?' Because those are the best roles I get to play, and I get to play heroes in those roles. "

David Oyelowo

People

Heroes