The Rise Of TThe Black British Actor In America

[Holac]

 

In Britain, David Oyelowo was feeling limited.

 

A brilliant actor who can melt inside of a role and turn in a performance worthy of high praise from his contemporaries, Oyelowo — who first came of notice as doomed spy Danny Hunter on BBC’s Spooks (called MI-5 in the U.S.) — wasn’t finding much material that allowed him to push himself to the next level. He’d had minor success doing prestigious work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, but breaking into TV and films proved to be challenging. And he envisioned more for himself when he fancied a performance art career.

So seven years ago, he and his wife Jessica made the decision to head to Los Angeles, with the hope being that he’d find the type of work fitting for his training at the esteemed London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He arrived in May of that year and by July — a mere two months after moving in the place where he’d hoped he would find the role of his dreams — the script for a film named Selma was dropped into his lap.

It took another seven years, five directors, and a rewrite before the film would hit the big screen, but now Oyelowo is impressing critics with his arresting portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, the humanitarian who would help to change the lives of millions of Americans before being slain in 1968.

Oyelowo’s story isn’t so uncommon. It’s familiar to that of many black British actors, and in some ways, his role — and his story — is part of a larger trend playing out in Hollywood right now. There’s a black British Actor Renaissance of sorts occurring, largely because black Brits aren’t finding the type of work in the United Kingdom that allows them to explore the depth they’re seeking from their roles. But stateside, these British expatriates are giving life to classic American stories, many gritty and all of them deeply layered and complex.

Part of that may be luck or timing or opportunity. But it’s the odyssey of Oyelowo — who as King is playing one of the most recognizable and iconic Americans of all time — that feels as if it were being orchestrated from on high.

“I played a soldier confronting President Lincoln in the film Lincoln, and I say to him, in the winter of 1865, ‘When are we going to get the vote?’ and then there I am, 100 years later, depicting Dr. King, alongside the very same actor, Colman Domingo — we confronted President Lincoln together — we are now in a jail cell, asking for the vote again, in 1965,” Oyelowo said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “I’ve played a preacher in The Help, I played a fighter pilot in Red Tails, I played someone who was in a sit in, was a Freedom Rider, was a Black Panther, then goes on to be a senator in The Butler. They’re all characters that took me on this journey through what it has been to be a black person for the last 150 years.”

Oyelowo stopped, paused, and corrected himself slightly here. In nearly every role he’s taken on since he arrived in the United States, he’s portrayed the sojourn for what it’s like to be a black American for the last 150 years. It’s an important distinction that’s not taken lightly by the 38-year-old actor.

 

“I know more about American history than I do either Nigerian or British history at this point,” he said, before adding a quick chuckle.

 

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[Alpha Blondy]

i'm very tempted to move to the US to pursue my long overdue acting career. i've always looked to the US for a cultural reference. the UK is limiting. Somaliland has no future for me, currently. seeing compatriots like David Harewood make it, makes it all that more appealing, ruunti.