the further away it is from me as an actor,

the more it feels like I'm doing my job.

I have no interest in playing anything akin to myself.

Hi, I'm David Oyelowo

and this is the timeline of my career.

[soft jazz music]

How exactly can we do that?

- Because we understand each other

we always have!

- Not anymore.

"Spooks" came along at a time where

I had just done three years

at the Royal Shakespeare company.

I'd had one season where I'd been

in "Antony and Cleopatra", "Orinoco",

and a play called "Volpone".

And then I have this huge moment in my career

which was getting to play "Henry VI"

at the Royal Shakespeare company.

But I hadn't really done anything on screen.

And this show called "Spooks" came along,

which was about MI-5 spies.

What I loved about it is that

it had exactly the thing I had vowed

to myself would be something I would

always pursue in my career,

which was to play roles that were not race specific.

I had managed that with, obviously,

getting to play the King of England in "Henry VI",

but when "Spooks" came along to effectively

be Bond for the TV as we liked to call it,

was just a huge opportunity.

Myself, Matthew Macfadyen, and Keeley Hawes

who played the leads in "Spooks",

we were all in our early 20s

and at that point in British television

that just wasn't happening.

Young people were not heading up these kinds of shows.

It was stars who were more in their 40s

who were very reliable, constantly on TV.

I think that's part of what was the success

of the show because we literally treated every episode

as if we were going to get fired.

So, we just went in and had as much fun

as we could possibly have until everyone

realized what they had done

and summarily let us go.

This is your operation, Tom!

Why are you wrecking it?!

- After everything we've been through together, please!

- [Danny] You owe this to us.

- No, no, we couldn't do that here, not a Mulago.

- Why not?

- It's the president's hospital.

He's bound to find out.

- We can do this discreetly--

- No!

Because I did three seasons of "Spooks",

and to be perfectly honest,

I wanted to go on to be the lead.

I wanted to be front and center of that show,

and for whatever reason, they didn't see it the same way.

And so I said, either put me front and center

or give me the most epic death possible,

and the latter is what happened.

They gave me the epic death.

And partly my thinking around that

was the show, "Spooks", had been such a big hit,

I kept on having these great directors

reach out to me and saying,

"We would love to work with you,

but you're always busy making Spooks."

So, the choice for me was either

I should be more prominent in that show

or I wanted to go and call these directors' bluff

and see if they would still stick around

when I was no longer on the show.

And when I left the show, thankfully,

that they were indeed there.

And so, "The Last King of Scotland" was one

of the first films I did after shooting "Spooks"

with James McAvoy and the incredible Forest Whitaker.

I'm of African descent myself,

but it was the first film at that stage

that I actually shot in Africa.

And I think it was only the second film ever shot in Uganda.

They will believe you.

You are the white man.

Dad, you heard what mom said.

- That mess right there happened down South.

- [Louis] This could have been me.

- It happened down South.

I got out of there so we could have us a better life.

Right now, I'm working for the white man,

make things better for us.

- After "The Last King of Scotland",

I did a couple of other films.

Like also "Spooks" did really well here in America,

and so it became a good excuse to come out here

and see if there were going to be opportunities.

And my wife and I decided coming just speculatively

to see what might be out here,

and we ended up moving in 2007,

and about two, three months after moving,

this script, "Selma" hit my doormat.

That led to a whole journey that eventually led

to Lee Daniels, who came on board to direct that film.

I first read "Selma" in 2007.

Lee Daniels came on board with "Selma" in 2010.

And then, for a myriad of reasons,

we couldn't get "Selma" off the ground

but we formed this really quite incredible bond.

And that's what led to him

casting me in "The Butler".

When I had played Henry VI

it was "Henry VI parts one, two, and three",

and I had experienced what it is

to go from being a teenager in those plays

to also being an older man.

And so when "The Butler" came along

and presented the same kind of opportunity

and challenge but on film,

it was one that felt very natural to me to jump into

because I knew that playing age is not just about makeup.

It's about a state of mind.

That was something I had learnt playing Henry VI.

And so it was a no-brainer that

I was going to play this guy

from the age of 18 through to 65 or whatever it was.

But that is less often the case on film

as can be the case in theater,

and so unknown to me, Lee Daniels had actually

cast someone to play the younger version

of Louis Gaines, the character I play in "The Butler".

And I had no idea.

I turned up, we were doing the camera test

as is often the case before you go onto shoot the film,

and I just did what I assumed I would do

which is to play my 18-year-old self,

and then we put makeup on and we also saw

that I could play my 60-something-year-old self.

And it wasn't until after the camera test,

I found out that an actor who had been hired

was then let go because I didn't realize

I had effectively been auditioning again

to play the younger version of myself

when we did the camera test.

So, that was a relief.

Not so much for that poor actor who had to be let go

but I was very keen to play the full arc of the character,

and I'm thankful that I got to do that.

We must in this country for our rights.

- [Crowd] Yes!

- Today, we march to free the people of South Africa.

A law that says you have to get up every morning

and seven o'clock put on your clothes, and your makeup,

and your costume jewelry.

Up until this point in my career

I had had the opportunity to work

with Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland".

I'd also seen an actor like Daniel Day Lewis in "Lincoln".

I saw these two magnificent titans of acting

immersing themselves so deeply in their characters

that it was impossible to discern who

they actually were as people themselves on set

and "Nightingale" was the first time that

I made the choice to stay in character the whole time.

Partly, because when I did "The Last King of Scotland",

to be perfectly frank,

being around Forest was tough

because he was playing a Ugandan dictator,

and so making small talk with him on that set

was not something that was going to be happening.

And even though it was fantastic for the film

it was difficult for the crew and the rest of the cast.

And so if I was gonna do that

it felt like "Nightingale" was the perfect

opportunity to try it out.

I didn't have to be mean to other members of the cast

because they weren't there,

and it gave me an opportunity to see

if this is something that works for me.

And the thing I couldn't have anticipated is

that playing that character, staying in character,

for the three weeks, four weeks of the shoot,

and the thing that it gave me is it meant

I never second guessed any choices I made on screen.

And that's an incredibly releasing thing

to not be in your own head as to whether

you're making the right choices for the character.

And so, it gave me the blueprint

for playing other intense characters that

I went on to play beyond doing "Nightingale".

You want to ruin everything?

Fine!

This isn't over yet.

I know all your hiding places.

And on the rare occasions that they face trial

they are freed by all-white juries.

All-white because you can't serve

on a jury unless you are registered to vote.

One of the challenges for "Selma",

during these seven years before it got made,

was that we were still in a time where

there was this narrative,

this really insidious narrative in Hollywood

that black doesn't travel.

So, it was a film that wouldn't do well internationally.

It was a film that exhibited Black pain,

so Black people wouldn't want to see it.

And it was a film that maybe made white people feel guilty.

So, white people wouldn't want to see it.

So that was a narrative.

We kept on being told that the film

should be made for about 25% less of the budget

than it actually needed to get made.

So, Lee just couldn't find a way to get this film made.

That's why I went on to do the films, "The Paper Boy"

and "The Butler" with him instead.

But in the meantime, I had done a film called

"Middle of Nowhere" with Ava DuVernay.

That came about because I was on my way

to do re-shoots for a film called

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes",

and I sat down next to a guy who happened

to be watching "Spooks" on his iPad.

And he looked at me, looked at his iPad,

looked at me again, paused his iPad

and said, "Is this you I'm watching on my iPad?"

I said, "Oh yeah, that's me."

He said, "Oh, okay, you're an actor.

Give me some advice.

I've been asked to put some money

into a film called "Middle of Nowhere",

do you think that's a good idea?"

I said, "Well, send me the script.

I'll tell you if it's a good idea."

He sent me the script.

I loved it so much

that I flipped to the front of the script,

and it said Ava DuVernay and her cell number was on it.

I called her when I got off the plane

having done my re-shoots,

and I said, "I've just read your script.

It's incredible.

Can I be in it?"

And Ava told me that I was actually

on her list of people she wanted for this

but she thought I would never do it

because I do these bigger movies.

Anyway, we went on to do this film.

We made it