A Quote by David Oyelowo

I know for a fact the reason I'm an actor is because one, two, maybe three people when I was younger saw something that I did, in youth theater or some small play somewhere, and said, "You're good."
In theater they want to put you on a contract a year in advance and I don't really like that. That's the reason why I became an actor - I like the freelance work. It's interesting, I like not being told what to do still, and I have a job where people tell me exactly what to do, so maybe I don't know myself as well as I want to. I think my last play I did was three years ago.
It's really hard to copy another actor and be successful. In fact, that's usually the reason people are not good, because they're copying something they've seen, but, for some reason with their face and their body, it doesn't work.
One of the things that I'd like to get back to that I did as a younger actor was to work on, you know, a rep season for a summer where you did two or three Shakespeares, and you'd do a couple of either new plays or classic plays, and you did a different one almost every night.
I played Romeo when I was younger, and I think I did a couple kind Romeo-like parts after that, and I kind of went, 'I mustn't do this again. I must always choose something that I don't know if I'm a good enough actor to play.'
I think the moment I discovered I definitely wanted to act was when I saw a play alone by myself when I was fourteen. Maybe it was a Moliere play? I discovered the atmosphere of the theater, and I knew I wanted to be an actor.
I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.
I actually did want to be an actor when I was younger, but my father didn't want to hear anything about it. And you know what? I went with his decision. I said, 'Yeah, maybe you're right. I don't know anything about acting.'
I've worked with a few coaches, and I did theater camp when I was younger, and I think what was good was when I was younger, it was never intense Interlochen theater camp.
There tends to be this hierarchy of film and television, and theater is somewhere else in its own milieu. However, as actors, yes, we love to do theater because it's our story. Nobody can edit it, the curtain goes up, and it's ours for two hours or three, or whatever. And we tell it.
I started playing bass in my friend's band for some reason. It was just something I did because, well, he asked me if I wanted to play bass and he played me this song - Nirvana's version of "Molly's Lips", the Vaselines song - and he said, "You can do this! This is not hard!" and it's like a two-note song. I learned that and then I thought I was a genius.
Maybe it's important to open up I people- people who are right there with you, not some thousand miles away in another universe. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe I should just settle for not knowing. Maybe it's just good to know that you're not the only one who doesn't know.
I guess [Richard] Pryor was that good. I never saw him in a theater, but I imagine he was that good, because he was such a phenomenal actor.
"You ready to play?" Dave asked, bouncing it. "I don't know," I said. "Are you going to cheat?" "It's street ball!" He said checking it to me. "Show me that love." So chessy, i thought. But as i felt it, solid against my hands, i did feel something. I wasn't sure it was love. Maybe what remained of it, though, whatever that might be. "All right," I said. "Let's play."
An actor said recently that, unless you're a parent, you shouldn't play a parent in a film. I don't know who said it, but I disagree. I understand that maybe there are aspects that you don't understand, or maybe this actor or actress had a really strong recent experience with having their first or second or third born child. I don't know. As a dad, I get that. I get that there is no love like it. But, at the same time, love is love.
You hear a few people saying that, you know, maybe some of the past male players like to watch me play or whatever else, just because I play a bit differently and maybe they can relate to it a bit more with a bigger forehand rather than a backhand, good serve and whatnot.
I did this play, 'Expedition 6,' that I worked on for three years in between other things. It was a good, interesting time for me because I trained as a theater director, and I went back, and we toured it around.
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