David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo OBE (born 1 April 1976 in Oxford, England) is a British stage and screen actor and producer of Yoruba Nigerian descent.
He is married to actress Jessica Oyelowo neé Watson.
Works
- Spooks: Danny Hunter
- The Last King of Scotland: Dr. Junju
- The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Kremlin Busang
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Steven Jacobs
- The Butler: Louis Gaines
- Jack Reacher: Detective Emerson
- Star Wars Rebels: Agent Kallus (voice)
- Robot Chicken: Sebastian (Pay the Crab
skit) (voice) - Nightingale: Peter Snowden
- Interstellar:
The School Principal - Selma: Martin Luther King Jr.
- A Most Violent Year: Assistant District Attorney Lawrence
- Captive: Brian Nichols
- Nina: Clifton Henderson
- Queen of Katwe: Robert Katende
- A United Kingdom: Seretse Khama
- The Lion Guard: Scar (voice)
- The Cloverfield Paradox
- Chaos Walking (2021): Preacher Aaron
- Only You
- Americanah: Obinze
- Gringo: Harold Soyinka
- A Wrinkle in Time (2018): The IT (voice)
- The Midnight Sky: Adewole
- Les Misérables (2018) as Javert
- Home Movie: The Princess Bride as Prince Humperdinck
- See How They Run as Mervyn Cocker-Norris
- Silo as Holston Becker
- Lawmen: Bass Reeves as Bass Reeves
- The After as Dayo
Tropes that apply to his works include:
- Dyeing for Your Art: He put on some extra weight for his role as Dr. King in Selma.
- Fake American: As Jacobs and Dr. King.
- Large Ham: In The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and a few (but memorable) times in Rebels, as well as The Lion Guard.
- Memetic Mutation:
- Agent Kallus not only had Memetic Hair, but as he became an Ensemble Dark Horse later on in the run of Rebels, #HotKallus ended up becoming a thing as well due to a rather iconic smirk and Character Development. According to Dave Filoni (as Oyelowo doesn't have any social media pages), he thinks it's crazy and loves it.
- He was apparently supportive of the idea to give Kallus the first name of "Alexander", which has freaked out fans of the character and led to several jokes about the name.
- Method Acting: He stayed in character in real life for a few of his roles, like Captive and Selma (his wife apparently wasn't very amused with the latter).
- Playing Against Type: His skit in Robot Chicken, a one-shot character in Glenn Martin, DDS, and playing the main character in Gringo, all Black Comedy works.
- So My Kids Can Watch: Revealing to his kids that he's playing a major villain in the Star Wars franchise earned him huge amounts of Squee from them. Applies to The Lion Guard as well, though they've somewhat grown out of the target demographic.
- Star-Making Role:
- His supporting role in The Butler appears to have made him more well-known, and even more so by his follow-up role as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma.
- His role in Star Wars Rebels (the Star Wars franchise now being owned by Disney) seems to have played some part in him being in Queen of Katwe and The Lion Guard, both productions of Disney.
- Typecasting: A bunch of his roles that clearly aren't based off of real life often seem to place him in roles of authority, usually being a cop or something related to crime (an MI5 officer in Spooks, detective and actually a Dirty Cop in Jack Reacher, a State Sec agent and a Heel–Face Turn The Lancer in Star Wars Rebels, an assistant district attorney in A Most Violent Year, a cop in Only You, and et cetera).
