A twist of fate paves the way for romance
DAVID OYELOWO was sorry to learn that Christian Bale had damaged his knee. But Bale’s misfortune turned out to be Oyelowo’s golden opportunity. David had worked with Rosamund Pike on the thriller Jack Reacher. And he wanted the actress to portray Ruth Williams, the white, British, middle-class legal secretary, who in 1948 controversially married African king Seretse Khama — the man who eventually became the first president of Botswana — in a film he was championing. Oyelowo sent images of Ruth and Seretse to Ms Pike. ‘She emailed me back saying: “I don’t know who these people are, but they’ve had a profound effect on me. Who are they? What is this, and how do we get it done?”,’ the actor recalled. But Pike was busy: about to film another picture, with Bale. Then Oyelowo read that the actor had torn his meniscus. ‘I thought: “Oh my goodness! That means Rosamund must be free”,’ he explained. Soon, director Amma Asante had them on sets in the UK and Botswana, shooting A United Kingdom, which has its world premiere tonight at the Toronto Film Festival. Oyelowo said he spent more than six years ‘corralling and cajoling and recruiting’ friends to get the film made. It’s an astonishing picture about the power of love; telling how the couple overcame the many obstacles placed in their path to stop them from being together. Oyelowo observed that there’s a lot of discussion about diversity at the moment. ‘One mustn’t fall into the trap of purely complaining, without doing anything about it,’ he told me.