Latest David Oyelowo Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I never, ever do a film and just kind of move on. I think of them as children of mine, and you don't give birth to a baby and just leave it on someone else's doorstep. You see it all the way through college.

  David Oyelowo

  Baby, Children, Moving

  Source: www.esquire.com

• I gravitate towards anything that feels challenging to me, that feels like it's gonna be saying something a bit different and new to the audience, and anything that moves me. I do movies that I would want to see, so I don't necessarily gravitate towards any genre in particular. I just try and do the best work I can and also try to keep the audience guessing.

  David Oyelowo

  Moving, Challenges, Trying

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.

  David Oyelowo

  Art, Mean, Reflection

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• In what I do for a living, trust and confidence are key. Inevitably, you can't make brave choices and do your best work, if you don't have those, because it's such a subjective art form, and you don't have eyes on yourself.

  David Oyelowo

  Art, Eye, Keys

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.

  David Oyelowo

  Color, Voice, Important

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• My ambition is to keep the audience guessing... that is my path to a long career.

  David Oyelowo

  Ambition, Careers, Long

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• The wonderful situation that I find myself in now, is that choosing the roles I want is more of a reality for me. As a result, I take it very seriously, because I find this opportunity in film to be a very powerful and influential medium.

  David Oyelowo

  Powerful, Opportunity, Reality

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• Dr. Martin Luther King was never a man to say 'I've got this' as the leader of the movement. He wasn't always sure that his decisions were correct, because he knew every decision he made was putting lives at risk, including his and his family's lives.

  David Oyelowo

  Kings, Men, Decision

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• The thing that would probably surprise most people was that Dr. Martin Luther King was a very reluctant leader. He felt very shocked at times that he had been chosen for this path, but he also understood that he was chosen for this path. He had several moments of acute doubt as to if he was up for the task - when people were injured in the protests he took it very personally, let alone when they were killed.

  David Oyelowo

  Kings, People, Leader

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• I'm very aware that people find my wife and I's marriage disagreeable. But all I have to do is look at my four kids, and the love I have in my heart for my wife after 18 years of marriage, and the ugliness does fade.

  David Oyelowo

  Heart, Kids, Years

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• To break down prejudice is to get to a place of understanding, that can erode the ignorance.

  David Oyelowo

  Ignorance, Understanding, Prejudice

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• I think the notion that we are different just because of skin color, and that we should be kept apart or kept from interbreeding, is very hurtful.

  David Oyelowo

  Thinking, Skin Color, Hurtful

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• Africa is trying to find its way back to a sense of itself, when much of that was lost through colonization.

  David Oyelowo

  Trying, Way, Lost

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• There is still a fundamental misunderstanding, when it comes to observing that when someone is black and someone is white, then that difference is enough to warrant the idea that they shouldn't be together. We are so much more alike in nature than we are different, and my ambition with the roles I choose to do is to break down that prejudice, by showing how much I - as a man - am just a man.

  David Oyelowo

  Ambition, Men, Ideas

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• We're not served by only knowing our finest hours through film or media, or in the history that we are taught. I think the only way we have a chance to not make the same mistakes again, is to historically understand the bad behavior and mistakes we've made previously.

  David Oyelowo

  Mistake, Thinking, Media

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• The perception of Africa, whether in the U.S. or in Europe, is of a continent that needs help, and cannot pull itself up. That is just not true.

  David Oyelowo

  Europe, Perception, Needs

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in America is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally. I truly believe that we cannot come to a place of reconciliation until there is individual repentance and corporate repentance.

  David Oyelowo

  Believe, America, Racism

  Source: www.ncregister.com

• I truly believe slavery is why, as a by-product, we still have a disproportionate amount of black men incarcerated in America. It is an extension of that legacy, and that's not going to start to diminish until black people have a new sense of themselves that isn't tied to slavery and feeling inferior. I think the church can be instrumental in that, in terms of repentance, reconciliation and just being more embracing of each other - not just on Sunday, but in life generally.

  David Oyelowo

  Believe, Sunday, Men

  Source: www.ncregister.com

• Sunday at 11 o'clock is the most segregated hour in America. You have black churches; you have white churches; you have Hispanic churches. It's not really reflective of the world we live in, by and large, in America.

  David Oyelowo

  Sunday, White, America

  Source: www.ncregister.com

• Martin Luther King was a voice to the voiceless, and he did that tirelessly, and his faith was the engine to that. But he was just a human being, at the end of the day.

  David Oyelowo

  Kings, Voice, The End Of The Day

  Source: www.ncregister.com

• I think that having a black president in America has been a seismic shift, in terms of what has been going on racially in America. I think that America is now engaging with how we have come to this point.

  David Oyelowo

  Thinking, America, Black

  Source: www.ncregister.com

• People have compact to go beyond our own culture and upbringing to a degree that I think we don't acknowledge enough really.

  David Oyelowo

  Thinking, People, Degrees

  Source: chicago.gopride.com

• I do think how two people dance with each other is indicative of how they feel about each other. It can tell a lot more than a verbal scene.

  David Oyelowo

  Thinking, Two, People

  Source: chicago.gopride.com

• I basically enjoy doing films that are about something, that have complex roles that I can sink my teeth into. Basically, I gravitate to things that scare me. They might be things that I don't think I know how to play. I like trying to find within me where this character may exist. Whether is it is a fictional character or not I am not motivated by that. It is more about how challenging it is. It is just so happens that the more high profile things I have done have been historical characters.

  David Oyelowo

  Character, Thinking, Play

  Source: chicago.gopride.com

• When I am playing a role far away from me with an accent that is not mine I always employ a dialect coach. I am almost always playing someone that has an accent that is not mine.

  David Oyelowo

  Dialect Coach, Roles, Playing Someone

  Source: chicago.gopride.com