David Oyelowo has just returned to London to prepare for rehearsals.
The eldest of three boys, Oyelowo moved to the United Kingdom with his parents – who were both academics – as immigrants. Reflecting on his illustrious career, which spans over two decades, he pauses over a Zoom call with FORBES AFRICA to consider what inspired him to become a storyteller. During his school days, he had been interested in theater and performing but had never thought of it as a means to earn a living. It was one teacher, in particular, who noticed the young talent and encouraged him to pursue acting.
“I think my mother just thought this would be a weird thing that I would grow out of,” chuckles Oyelowo recalling the memory.
“A large part of why I didn’t think this would or should be a passion was because my parents had not seen me or anyone like them refl ected on the screen.” The closest Oyelowo’s mother got to seeing this was with the late Sidney Poitier, a Bahamian-American actor, producer and film director, famous for the 1967 British drama film, To Sir, With Love.
Years later, a critically-acclaimed and award-winning Oyelowo states that he was aware of just how underrepresented he himself was, when his career kick-started. distinct memory comes to mind of a time when he moved back to Lagos at the age of six.
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“I grew up, especially when I was in Lagos, always surrounded by uncles and men who I did not see represented on our screens… I did know that I was entering an industry where I would either be part of he problem or the solution.”
When he graduated from the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, he knew the kind of roles he wanted to portray.
“I graduated saying ‘no’ to jobs that did not feel like a good fit for me, which probably frustrated a lot of people,” Oyelowo explains. “But you have to know that all of those ‘no’s’ are creating a bullseye of a ‘yes’ for something ground-breaking.”
From portraying a visionary civil rights lea er in Selma (2014) to playing Cecil Gaines’s son in The Butler (2013) and a Ugandan chess coach in Queen of Katwe (2016), Oyelowo is known, globally, for bringing ground-breaking reality to his roles. It is also something he takes into consideration when choosing projects.
“I am doing this as a love I have for telling authentic stories,” he says.
Playing prominent roles that give impetus not only to the African and African-American story, Oyelowo points out that a large part of what he does has to do with ensuring that emerging artists take control of their narrative.
Further to this, he is a Co-founder of Mansa, a streaming service that offers a curated selection of films and television series that celebrate Black culture from around the globe. Oyelowo also launched the platform this year as an ad-supported streaming TV station on The Roku Channel as a way to ensure that people of color start benefi ting from the content they create.
According to a 2023 Statista report, there were 415 million smartphone subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa in 2022. That number is expected to reach 689 million by 2028. For Oyelowo, this means that more and more people can have access to content created on the continent. But Africans need to take control of their narrative and start to tell the African story.
“I always get confused when people say Black and Brown people are the minority,” he says. “We cannot afford to be culturally colonized. We are the culture because we have the global majority…. It is crucial [that we tell our own stories], otherwise it will be watered down. Africa is the cradle of creation.”
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