David Oyelowo on Creating an Inclusive Kingdom and Sticking With ‘Bass Reeves’ After Being Turned Down by Every Studio

variety.com:

David Oyelowo made his U.S. breakthrough portraying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in “Selma.” Playing the awe-inspiring civil rights leader was an opportunity for the British-Nigerian actor to live up to his surname, which translates to “a king deserves respect.” Oyelowo has been reflecting on that time in his life a lot more lately, thanks in part to “Becoming King,” a documentary directed by his wife, Jessica Oyelowo, that captures the seven-year journey to bring “Selma” to the big screen. “It was a big year,” he says of 2014. “There was no way you could know the sheer amount of things that would happen, because at the beginning of it, nothing was happening. ‘Selma’ felt dead.

I was in the middle of shooting ‘A Most Violent Year,’ having a good time with that, but just feeling in a state of limbo and then—” He stops mid-thought. “Talking to you now is probably the moment I realized it was the most highs and lows of my life. ‘Selma’ got greenlit, we got to shoot it, but it was also the year my mum had a brain aneurysm.

Truly a roller coaster.” “Becoming King” also captures the genesis of Oyelowo’s work as a producer. He isn’t credited as such on “Selma,” but that’s where he learned how to do the job: “In the moment, I was just, to be perfectly frank, a desperate actor trying to will this opportunity that was nibbling at being a possibility.” Oyelowo enlisted Ava DuVernay to direct and Oprah Winfrey to produce, but his efforts went far beyond that.