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" If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them. "
David Oyelowo
Play
Human
Show
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" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Hope
Work
Unexpected
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Race
Going
Things
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Writing
Great
Moving
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Black
Bullying
Friends
" There are a lot of challenges I undeniably have faced as a black person both in the U.K. and in the U.S. that contrived to make me feel lesser than what I am. "
David Oyelowo
I Am
Black
Than
" The kinds of stories I want to be a part of telling are about delving into what it is to be a human being. "
David Oyelowo
Want
Stories
Kinds
" I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person. "
David Oyelowo
Father
Husband
Person
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Opportunities
Nice
Work
" I've been an actor for 14 years now and a lot of that time was spent in theatre and television. Then I moved to L.A. to try and build upon that and it's starting to pay off! "
David Oyelowo
Time
Build
Television
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Movies
Grow
Grow Up
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Play
Character
Way
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Impact
Believe
Want
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Black
Kings
People
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Movies
People
Truth
" I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school. "
David Oyelowo
Sometimes
School
Coconut
" 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
Me
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Live
Think
Growing Up
" Every time I go to Africa, I feel like I hit true north. There is a depth of feeling that I have for the continent, in the richness of the people, the suffering , but also the transcendent joy that is there - it's like nowhere else on the planet. "
David Oyelowo
Time
People
Joy
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Hope
History
Down
" There are many, many communities, many ethnic minorities, many civilizations that have been brutalised by others and you have to move on. You cannot perpetually stay in that place of blame, otherwise it's just a downward spiral. "
David Oyelowo
You
Blame
Move On
" I hear God as an audible voice. "
David Oyelowo
Hear
Voice
God
" 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
Me
Small
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Play
My Own
You
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Bias
Racial
Power
" What we usually do to great men and women is relegate them to homogenised heroism. Their words and actions become soundbites and images in a way that gives us an excuse not to act bravely in our own lives. "
David Oyelowo
Words
Own
Men
" 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?' "
David Oyelowo
Film
End
Person
" I think that any channel, whether it's Fox, CNN, or whatever, if they were truly giving a 360-view of what's going on, we would be better equipped to not slap judgments on people we really don't understand. "
David Oyelowo
Better
Slap
Think
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Best
Kind
You
" I like to think of myself as a physical actor. "
David Oyelowo
Like
Actor
Myself
" 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. "
David Oyelowo
Looking
You
Character