‘It’s My Job to Hold a Mirror Up to Humanity’: David Oyelowo on ‘Coriolanus,’ Hollywood, and the State of the West End

David Oyelowo lives for drama. He “loves the challenge” of taking on complex stories and characters. And right now, he says, the theater is one of the best places to do that. “Drama has almost become a swear word within the film industry,” the 48-year-old actor, director, and producer tells Vogue. With films today, he says, “It’s more like, Tell me obviously what it says on the tin and I will sell that tin.”

Born in Oxford, Oyelowo spent his early years in south London before he and his family moved to Nigeria, returning to the British capital when he was 14. On the advice of a teacher at his school in Islington, Oyelowo started to pursue acting and landed a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Several years after graduating, he became widely known to British audiences for his role as MI5 officer Danny Hunter in cult aughts BBC spy thriller Spooks, but it was his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in Ava DuVernay’s 2014 historical drama Selma—following supporting roles in The Help, The Butler, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes—that proved to be his Hollywood breakthrough, earning him numerous accolades. Last year’s The After, an emotional short directed by Misan Harriman in which Oyelowo plays a grieving widower and father, received a nod from the Oscars. Offscreen, he has founded production company Yoruba Saxon, alongside his actor wife Jessica, which focuses on creating “values-based content.”

But for now, he is back in the UK from his home in Los Angeles to lead a production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus at the National Theatre. “I love my kids, I love my wife, I love my house,” he smiles. To get him to leave any of those things, “it has to be because I’m saying something worth saying.” Directed by Lyndsey Turner, this adaptation of Shakespeare’s political tragedy follows Roman warrior Coriolanus, whose flash-in-the-pan fame results in him standing for high office. But his misalignment with (and dislike of) the common people is soon revealed. Sound familiar? As we hurtle towards November’s election, with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris going head to head, it’s “a pretty intriguing time to have this play on,” Oyelowo concedes.