David Oyelowo

For the real actors to come.

Literally.

And I very much thought of them as that.

And I had the page and I guess I just did it the way I thought it should be done.

And I finished this speech and the room just went completely silent.

And I thought, oh.

It was that bad.

It was that bad that these people are speechless with how bad it was.

And then three days later, I was cast in the lead of this play.

And although I didn't understand the significance of it at the time, this youth theater was at the National Theater, like the Royal National Theater of Great Britain on the South Bank in London.

And so the very first thing I did was playing the lead on what was then the Cottesloe stage.

It's called the Dorfman Theater now.

at the National Theatre.

And yeah, it literally happened because that day those guys didn't turn up.

I absolutely did.

It actually is taught because you're around these actors who there is a tradition of it, actually.

And as a young actor, what you're looking for is to sit at the feet of a Judi Dench or as I did with Judi Dench or Alan Bates or Ralph Fiennes or Kenneth Branagh.

You know, these are people I literally had the opportunity to work with.

Like, I did a film called As You Like It with Kenneth Branagh.

I did a show with Judi Dench.