What’s up, guys? I’m Jamila Mustafa from B.E.T. Social
- and I’m here with… - David Oyelowo and I'm pulling up.
Now, in this film, it is a dark comedy with a little bit of action
and a little bit of trapping. This is when a law-abiding citizen
takes a step on the dark side.
Thanks so much, Mr. Oyelowo. So, let me hop into it.
So, Selma was more serious, Martin Luther King, I mean,
it was a movement piece. This is straight comedy
and you are hilarious. So, tell us a little bit
about the process and what was it like on set.
Well, you know, having played Dr. King and other, you know,
more dramatic roles, I wanted to switch it up
and this script came along, made me laugh so much
and that indicated to me that it was something that hopefully
the audience would find funny as well, but it was not written
as a black character. It was actually written as a white character.
His name was Harold Salinger originally and I really wanted to do it.
So I pursued the role. I went to the director, he embraced me
as that character and then we pushed it even further
and made him a Nigerian immigrant and so he’s now
called Harold Soyinka in the film and, yeah, we had an amazing time
shooting it in Mexico with some extraordinary actors
as well and, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
All right, so, in this film, you appear with some awesome
actors and actresses like Charlize Theron. Who was the funniest on set?
Oh, wow, that’s a very good question. Charlize is incredibly funny,
partly because she’s so inappropriate and she gets a lot of fun out of the fact
that I’m quite naïve in certain areas
so she makes me laugh a lot. Joel was incredibly funny as well
but Sharlto Copley who I play opposite quite a bit,
he is amazing with improvisation and a lot of our interaction
in the film is based on the script, but we would riff on it
and he would just come up with some great, sort of hilarious scenes
and that was a lot to do with him.
Let’s talk about it is hard to do your job when you have
- a horrible boss, right? - Yes.
And in this film, I saw the eyes roll because your boss was nasty.
He was two-timing, lying, backstabbing, I ain’t even gonna talk about it.
- All of it. - He's not a good friend nor a boss.
- That’s right. - In your real life,
have you ever had a horrible boss and how did you deal with him?
Oh, that’s a good question.
When I was a teenager, I worked for a very famous
fast food company that will remain nameless.
Was it Mickey D? I ain’t gonna say nothing.
- I couldn’t possibly say. - It's a lot.
And I was, I would wash all the utensils in the back and, uh,
one day, there was this brush by the sink and it was an industrial brush
and I thought, oh, okay, I’ll use that brush just to wash everything
and I finished all the utensils and then my boss
comes along and goes why is that brush there.
I said, well, I just saw it there. I used it to wash everything.
He said, that’s a toilet brush.
And I said, I, I washed it and they’d already been using
it to cook food and he literally said...
- this stays between us. - Ooh!
That’s not a good boss. I should’ve been fired.
I should’ve been fired but,
yeah, so, I don’t eat at that famous food chain anymore.
That’s a plot twist! I hate it.
So, in the movie, you're a rep for a huge pharmaceutical company
and so I want to ask you kind of an off-the-wall question
but it’s something that I think about often. So if you could put
a behavior or emotion in a pill, right, like maybe empathy
or maybe patience, what would you put in a pill form?
Wow, that’s such a great question.
I, the attribute I admire the most in humanity is self-sacrifice
and that’s what it would be because I think if everyone was thinking
about others more than themselves,
the world would be an entirely different place.
Hmm, what are your viewers and your audience and your fans
going to learn about you in this movie
that they did not know about you before?
They will learn that I’m not Dr. King.
I think that’s certainly one thing, and that, you know,
I love doing comedy. There’s a lot of action in the film as well
and there’s a little bit of social commentary.
I wanted to play this role as Nigerian because I’m of Nigerian parentage
and I watched my parents as immigrants in the UK
also have a kind of wide-eyed, hopeful attitude that people
took advantage of and that’s what happens with Harold in this film.
So it’s very much rooted in experience.
There was a lot of stealing in this movie.
A lot of things were stolen in this movie, a lot of crime.
What is one thing, if someone took from you, that you would lose it,
you would go through hell and hot water to get it back?
Oh, wow. The thing you cannot touch in my life,
in any way, is my six-year-old daughter.
Like, if you even stole her candy from her, we would have
such a big problem. Like, that right there
is just sacred in every possible way.
So that’s how to get me murderous.
Hmm. So, in the new movie, It, that’s, well, no,
A Wrinkle in Time, you're playing the voice of It.
What was it like playing something that’s pure evil?
Ava Duvernay is like a sister to me and we have basically
determined that there is not going to be a single thing she ever directs
that I’m not involved in some way.
We started with Middle of Nowhere, then we did Selma together,
and now she’s doing Wrinkle in Time and so she basically
coached me as to how, you know, the direction she wanted me to go.
True evil actually is not what It may seem.
Actually, true evil disguises itself, you know, and it comes
at you in a way that is attractive and so that is true evil,
when you are able to worm your way into someone’s space and then
disseminate them and so, in many ways, that’s what we’re trying to do.
In this film, you master the scream.
I mean, there was a lot of scream in this film.
Now, is this something that you had to practice?
Is this an inner, where did this scream come from, David?
That’s a good question. One of the screams that you're describing.
Yeah, there’s several, is when I'm about to be injected
by a tracking device and this thing was the size of something
you'd inject a cow a with and I’m not good with needles.
So the scream you hear in the film is what is actually going on
inside whenever I’m being injected and I'm trying to play it cool.
So I just let myself let it out for the film.
Now what about the on-the-phone-cigarette? What scream,
where did that scream come from? Because when you guys hear that,
- you'll know what I’m talking about. - You want all the grades of scream?
I just want to know about the cigarette one now and then I’m done with the scream.
There were levels to the scream.
Well, part of acting is imagining what something would feel like.
Can you imagine what it must feel like to have a cigarette burn on your wrist?
And you did it perfect.
Thank you. I just did what I would imagine that, trust me,
I don’t go method to the point whereby, you know what, let me just...
[screaming]
I didn’t do that.
Oh my goodness! One last thing, so, in the film, although it was
a lot of comedy and we say dark comedy because it was very raw,
also there was such an element, an underline of betrayal
in the film from a lot of different people who you were close to.
And your character, he was not a pushover or a stepover
because you saw him kind of take the heroics there.
But what is some similarities in how you deal with betrayal
and maybe hurt in your character
- and in your real life as well? - Well, the main theme
of the movie is does it pay to be good
and you watch the character really question that because I think,
you know, indisputably, he’s a good person and that’s why people
are able to take advantage of him and you see him on that
knife edge of he could go one way or another but he chooses
the path that, personally, I would choose. Even though people may betray you,
people may do wrong by you, ultimately, I would want to believe
that I will stay in the place of being a good person
because I think that will, and does pay in the long term
and so that basically is the journey you see and that’s what I saw
in the script that really drew me to it. I felt, you know, this is,
yes, it’s an action comedy. It’s a fun ride but, ultimately,
it’s also a kind of a morality tale about,
should we be good or should we go to the dark side?
Thank you, guys so much. Thank you for pulling up.
I’m Jamila Mustafa. This is David Oyelowo and he just pulled up with B.E.T Social.