A RACE FOR RELEVANCE
David Oyelowo will not stop making serious films, even if they bomb at the box office
THERE is a recurring theme in David Oyelowo’s recent work. He is currently on Broadway, playing the lead in Othello.
A United Kingdom, the romantic biopic about the biracial marriage of Sir Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, is in cinemas in South Africa. His last lead role was in Queen of Katwe, the story of an African chess prodigy. If all goes well, Americanah, the crosscountry love story by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, will be his next project.
There is an emphasis on worthy, racially relevant, and African stories.
“My aim is to work with the best people I can, on the best material I can, in the best parts I can be afforded — and of course to continue to hopefully entice an audience who believe in the message I’m sharing,” Oyelowo says on the phone during a rehearsal break in New York.
He was not interested in Othello until a recent Oscar snub for Selma, in which he played Martin Luther King jnr.
He told an audience at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival that he had second thoughts because “black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient, when we are not being leaders or kings or being at the centre of our own narrative”.
The 40-year-old British-Nigerian actor and producer is not weighed down by heaviness, nor does he consider box office sales a reflection of success.
He is just burning to tell stories that matter.
“It is conscious work that is meaningful to me and what I want to do. It does not matter about how well these films do commercially now, it is recording history. A story like Queen of Katwe will be accessible long after I am gone. You make a film to last forever, unlike a play, which comes and leaves,” he says.
Director Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom tells the true story of the forbidden love between Khama — who was born into a royal family in the then British colony of Bechuanaland — and Williams, an English insurance clerk. They married in 1948 despite fierce opposition.
Oyelowo plays the lead and Williams is played by Rosamund Pike.
He says the message is deep, but it is also a love story.
“Look, it is a simple story that love can overcome the sexism, tribalism, all these man-madeisms. I believe that love is spiritual, it is the best of us as human beings,” says Oyelowo, whose own interracial marriage to actress Jessica Watson faced prejudice, albeit a milder version.
His convictions can be heard in a gravelly voice that easily breaks into laughter, easy smiles.
He laughs, for instance, that while box office success is not the aim, to make his worthy films the business end must be fulfilled. “A challenge the film industry is facing is that audiences have so many choices of how to watch films, or when.” Oyelowo says that while Queen
of Katwe, with a powerhouse team of director Mira Nair and co-star Lupita Nyong’o, was well-received by critics, the praise did not translate into ticket sales. “Yet it is still of huge value to me and my children, we fought hard to have that made. I am not going to stop making those types of films and we will find those audiences.”
It is the universal fight for attention, which might come on a different technological platform.
“Like I say, access to film has changed, you can press a few buttons and have access to a film within a few seconds, so eventually, everyone will have access to it.
“But it is something we really have to look at as Africans. If we want to be represented on film, but we don’t watch these films when our stories are told — and told well — that is a problem. It is a business and we have to show it is a business that adds up,” Oyelowo says.
The ripple effect could mean a story like Americanah would not come to fruition on the screen.
“We have ourselves to blame if these stories are not told. We must see ourselves as kings and being loved, winning against colonialist oppression like these two [the Khamas] did. We are digging deep to tell the stories, especially on the African continent,” he says.
“Especially for southern Africa. Here in America if you mention South Africa, they think, ‘Nelson Mandela’ and that’s about it. Southern African history is far and wide and deep. To gain empathy, compassion and understanding, we must build on knowledge of us as a people. That is what reduces prejudice, when fear goes and relatability comes in.”
Featuring South Africans Terry Pheto, Vusi Kunene and Abena Ayivor, A United Kingdom was partly filmed in Botswana.
“Making movies and being in Africa gives me so much joy. So many people I have met in Europe and America are shocked that you can find a 10-year-old in a slum in Uganda [Katwe], who went on to become a world chess champion. It is not surprising to me. As an African, I know that just because people feel real pressure and obstacles doesn’t mean they are any less genius in digging themselves out of it. Of course they didn’t know about it, the history being told from a Western perspective. “There are many stories, but
this is why I have to be the one to tell it.”
‘A United Kingdom’ is on circuit
‘I believe that love is spiritual, it is the best of us as human beings’