David Oyelowo

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.

Absolutely.

That's the gift.

Absolutely.

It's the gift.

And what's great about that story you tell, anyone...

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.