David Oyelowo
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Not just for actors I will never meet, my own son.
And when I went to Lambda, I was the only Black student of 300 students at that drama school.
I went to see my son in his play, and I graduated 27 years ago, and I now go and talk at Lambda every now and again.
And a decent portion of the school is people of color from all walks of life, from all over the world.
There's been some really great work done.
And when I say to those students, when I say to my own son, I cannot believe what I'm seeing in relation to what my experience was.
They have no real connection to what I'm saying.
And I find myself thinking...
That's exactly what you want.
You want them to not be able to understand what it would feel like to be the only... I want you to take this level of diversity for granted.
And that is the driver for me with storytelling, you know, in terms of the characters I play.
I'm always, to a certain degree, taking roles...
as a kind of uh gift to my 12 year old self in terms of the things that i didn't see on screen cd poitier was my hero because he it was like looking at a martian in relation to what i saw on british television in relation to what was possible growing up on a council estate
in Islington and to be in a world now where that is not the experience of my kids, where they're going, oh, I have no one to aspire to in terms of someone who looks like me.
That is a big, big driver for why I do what I do.
And what's great about that story you tell, anyone...