31 Facts About David Oyelowo

David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo is a British actor, director and producer.

David Oyelowo's accolades include a Critics' Choice Award and two NAACP Image Awards as well as nominations for two Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a BAFTA Award.

David Oyelowo achieved praise for his roles as Louis Gaines in The Butler, Seretse Khama in A United Kingdom and Robert Katende in Queen of Katwe.

David Oyelowo has played supporting roles in the films Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Help, Lincoln, Red Tails and Jack Reacher.

On television, David Oyelowo has played MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the British drama series Spooks and Javert in the BBC miniseries Les Miserables.

David Oyelowo provided the voice for Agent Alexsandr Kallus in the Lucasfilm Animation series Star Wars Rebels.

David Oyelowo was born on 1 April 1976 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, to Nigerian parents.

David Oyelowo grew up on an estate in Tooting Bec, South London, until he was six, when his family moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where his father worked for the national airline and his mother worked for a railway company.

David Oyelowo attended a "military-style" boarding-school named Lagos State Model College, Meiran.

David Oyelowo's family returned to London when Oyelowo was 14, settling in Islington.

David Oyelowo is an omoba of the Yoruba people in the Nigerian chieftaincy system, his grandfather having been king of a "part of Oyo State called Awe".

David Oyelowo enrolled for a year in an acting foundation course, at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

David Oyelowo began his stage career in 1999 when he was offered a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company playing roles in Ben Jonson's Volpone, as the title character in Oroonoko and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra alongside Guy Henry, Frances de la Tour and Alan Bates.

David Oyelowo played the title role in Othello in 2016 at the New York Theatre Workshop with Daniel Craig as Iago, directed by Sam Gold.

David Oyelowo is best known for playing MI5 officer Danny Hunter on the British drama series Spooks from 2002 to 2004.

David Oyelowo had before that appeared in Tomorrow La Scala, Maisie Raine and Brothers and Sisters.

David Oyelowo starred in the HBO original film Nightingale.

In 2007, David Oyelowo was the reader for John le Carre's The Mission Song.

David Oyelowo voiced the Tiger in a television adaptation of The Tiger Who Came to Tea which aired on Channel 4 for Christmas 2019.

Writer-director Ava DuVernay had been a fan of his work and had considered asking him to take the role, however before she could, David Oyelowo received the script coincidentally from a friend of a friend of DuVernay's who happened to be sitting next to him on the plane and was considering investing in the project.

That same year David Oyelowo appeared in Lee Daniels' The Paperboy, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

David Oyelowo reunited with Daniels the following year in The Butler.

In 2014, David Oyelowo formed his own independent production company, Yoruba Saxon Productions which has co-produced movies that featured him including, Nightingale, Captive, Five Nights in Maine and most recently, A United Kingdom.

David Oyelowo worked with DuVernay again for Selma, playing civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

David Oyelowo is slated to star with Lupita Nyong'o in a film adaptation of the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel Americanah.

In February 2019, it was announced that David Oyelowo had joined the Peter Rabbit cast with James Corden, Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson reprising their roles as the title character, Bea and Thomas McGregor for its sequel due to be released in March 2021.

In 2020, David Oyelowo starred alongside George Clooney in the Netflix film The Midnight Sky.

The first film to come out of the deal will be The Return of the Rocketeer, a Disney+-exclusive sequel to the 1991 film The Rocketeer, which David Oyelowo will produce alongside his wife, Jessica, and Brigham Taylor.

David Oyelowo is being considered to star in the film, which will center on "a retired Tuskegee airman who takes up the Rocketeer mantle".

David Oyelowo was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to drama.

David Oyelowo is married to actress Jessica Oyelowo, whom he met at LAMDA and with whom he has four children.