“I told George Clooney that I’d never seen an African astronaut in space”
From children’s fantasies to sci-fi epics, DAVID OYELOWO is considering the impact he’s having, every time he’s on screen
DAVID OYELOWO hasn’t been spending much time on terra firma lately. He’s breached the realms of fantasy and fiction in Come Away — an ode to classic children’s literature co-starring Angeline Jolie — and is shooting off to space in George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky. Oh, and he’s starring in his own directorial debut, The Water Man, a sci-fi adventure influenced by the classic Amblin films of the 1980s. We managed to rein him in for a few moments, where he spoke thoughtfully about the significance of the stories he chooses to tell — both in front of the camera, and behind it.
Come Away is rooted in the work of J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll. What’s your relationship like with their work?
Those characters and those stories have hovered around me since my childhood, and my wife was actually in Tim Burton’s version of Alice In Wonderland. But I never imagined myself being incorporated into those stories because of traditionally how they are presented culturally, historically, and otherwise.
Was that your reason for taking the role?
Yes, to see in those stories people who looked like me. I knew that in taking the role, Alice and Peter would be cast as Black kids. I thought that would be a nice, fresh way to look at the story.
And how was it working with Angelina Jolie?
It was a delight, not least because Angie and I had been friends for a while. We actually knew each other more as parents to lots of children. We met at a birthday party several years ago and got talking about our kids and raising kids in
Hollywood, and then we starting having these play dates together where our kids would break everything. When I was made producer on this film I had remembered her saying that she’s never played a mother to grown children before on screen, so one of the first things that I did was approach her with the project.
Your directorial debut, The Water Man, is a sci-fi adventure. Was this a big genre for you, growing up?
I was very much inspired by the films made by Amblin back in the 1980s and ’90s. The Goonies was a big one for me, and I remember watching E.T., and it was the first time that I had seen a single-parent family wrapped up in this fantasy adventure. I have four children, and I love watching movies with them. But I also want anything that we share together to prompt some kind of meaningful conversation or life lesson.
We’re next seeing you in George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky. What kind of director was he?
It’s incredible that after this many years of being in the industry, he still comes with a degree of excitement and a collaborative spirit. My character’s name was Commander Harper originally, I think. I told George that I’d never seen an African astronaut in space, and I wanted my character to have a Nigerian name. He told me to come up with one, and it went in the movie. He may not recognise the significance of that, but for me as a Nigerian boy growing up, if I’d watched Alien or any number of space films, and I saw an astronaut with a Nigerian name in it, that would shift my perspective of the world and where I fit in it.
And you’re currently filming Solitary with director Nate Parker — what can we expect from that one?
I’ve known Nate Parker for ten years, after we did Red Tails together. We were going to start shooting a film called Sweet Thunder, where I’ll be playing Sugar Ray Robinson, but then the pandemic came along and changed everyone’s plans, so we decided to pivot to a film that was more manageable in the era of Covid. There was a script that Nate had written called Solitary, and it’s about a guy who’s been in solitary confinement for seven years. That’s 23 hours a day, on your own. I play a character who comes out and is struggling to decipher what is real and what is imagined as he tries to rebuild a life with his fiancée and son. It’s a very intense film, but in such incredible hands.
COME AWAY IS IN CINEMAS FROM 18 DECEMBER