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" 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

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

" 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 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've never, ever taken a role for money purposes or for some bizarre notion of what may be the kind of career move that would open things up for me. If I don't believe in it, I can't do it because I won't be good in it if I don't believe in it. "

David Oyelowo

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" 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?' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I hear God as an audible voice. "

" 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? "

" 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 love tennis, love it! "

" The only way we are going to get diversity is if the demographics of the decision-makers change... The odd-token bone thrown is not going to do it. Don't pat yourself on the back because you made that black drama; that's not diversity. It's got to be baked into the foundation of where the ideas flow from. "

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

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

" The fact that I was black and desirous to do my work, the other kids would call me a coconut, as if I were somehow attempting to be white. The bullying was real: I'd get punched, spat at, terrible things. "

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

" 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. "

" If you look at your companies, and half of your staff are not female, and a decent percentage of them are not people of color, then you are part of the problem because you need people working for you and you need people in positions of leadership who can exercise their bias and who can exercise their perspective. "

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

David Oyelowo

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" 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. "

" 'The Help' sheds light on a certain truth in America, but the tragedy is if we don't get a chance to contrast it with other points of views. 'The Butler' does that, 'Red Tails' does that and that's what '96 Minutes' does. "

" 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. "

" 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 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

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