David Oyelowo

who knows Sidney Poitier's body of work, always thinks he won the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night because of the impact of that slap and that role and how groundbreaking it was.

And he wasn't even nominated for that.

Neither was he nominated for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

He won for Lilies of the Field.

Yeah, yeah.

Earlier.

Earlier, earlier.

And for a role where he was being nice to white nuns.

And that was what was deemed permissible for him back then.

It was deeply controversial to in one year, you're going to slap a white man and then fall in love with a white woman on our screens with us having given you an Oscar.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

And, you know, this is the thing about... I've heard it said, it's not about any given role.

It's about a body of work.

And that body of work is the thing that someone like me now takes for granted.

I look at Sidney Poitier and I go, wow.

But when you read about him, I met him and it was just...

oh my gosh, I can barely believe it actually happened.

And he, I remember Oprah introducing me to him and she said, oh yeah, David's going to play Martin Luther King.

And his eyes lit up.