David Oyelewo
David Oyelowo was born in Oxford on 1st April 1976 to a Nigerian family. His interest in acting started when he joined a local youth theater and he went on to study theatre studies. He credits his teachers at the college for giving him the determination to pursue an acting career and he went on to study at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic art by winning a scholarship to the institution and completed his training in 1998.
In 1999, David Oyelowo started his career on stage. He was offered a season with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company where he played roles in Ben Jonson’s Volpone and as the lead actor in Oroonoke. In 2001 he was the first black actor to play the role of an English King where he took on the lead role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Henry VI which many credit as being one his most famous performances. Even given the media criticism of his casting in the play, Oyelowo won best performance actor in the classical play at the Ian Charleson Awards in 2001. Other theatre productions include the ancient Greek tragedy, Prometheus Bound, in 2006. This took him across the waters to New York when the play was revived in America in 2007. He also began directing theatre productions and his directorial debut came in 2006 with the critically acclaimed, The White Devil which was performed in Brighton.
Perhaps his best known work outside of theatre is the award winning BBC television show Spooks where he played Danny Hunter for 2 years. He also appeared in a television film Born Equal in 2006 coupled with Nikki Amuka Bird, in the BBC production Blood and Oil in 2010 and he has starred in radio plays that were initially broadcast on BBC 7. Furthermore, Oyelowo has also had minor roles in high profile films such as The Last King of Scotland in 2006 alongside James McAvoy and, more recently, in the Steven Spielberg directed Lincoln in 2012. Last year he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male after he starred in the independent film Middle of Nowhere which won the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Oyelowo is currently married to Jessica Oyelowo and they live in Los Angeles, USA, with their 4 children.
David Oyelowo has got Africability!
