Rather, he notes, its just about finding projects that enable us to build infrastructure.
He has more than a concept of a plan already in place.
He confirmed that Ngozi will direct him in the drama.
David Oyelowo in ‘Coriolanus’Obidi Nzeribe/National Theatre
Oyelowo is producing through the Yoruba Saxon Productions company he founded with his wife Jessica Oyelowo.
Yvonne Isimeme Izabazebo (Rye Lane) is also an executive producer.
And the way to do that, he reasons, is to go there and cultivate it.
David Oyelewo as Bass Reeves inLawmen: Bass Reeves(2023), streaming on Paramount+. (Lauren Smith/Paramount+)Lauren Smith/Paramount+
That will mean having to take some production equipment there initially and then less and less and less.
Thats because you value that football team.
And I value that continent.
Its a grand-scale production with sets by Es Devlin.
She and Lyndsey Turner stagedHamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, at Londons Barbican Theatre in 2015.
Oyelowo admires that production for making Shakespeare accessible to audiences who werent necessarily wildly conversant with the Bards oeuvre.
Oyelowos well acquainted with the timeless drama underpinned by a giant war with ruthless politics at its center.
Stroking his hair in a mock coquettish manner, he says its like, Is she beautiful?
As opposed to what are they actually going to do and what do they stand for?
Its all geared to and rooted in personality, he attests.
Theres a humility tied to his desire to not be aggrandized.
Coriolanus is not a friend of the people.
Hes a soldier a valiant and brilliant warrior who refuses to be a political poster boy.
Away from the field of war, he wants to be useful now that hes home.
He has ideas and that becomes problematic.
The self-interested senate warns him that he cant gain power and then try and elicit change.
Its that muddiness and murkiness that the actor craves because thats where the heart of the drama lies.
The actor sees my point and says that he too sees that connection to the play.
And its something that has a different sensibility in a British context, in an American context.
And that of course goes into what the role is perceived to be.
This is Shakespeare writing 400 years ago about events that happened several centuries before his time.
He first performed it in a student production directed by Spencer Hinton at the Edinburgh Festival.
However, back then he played the part of the Volscian general Tullus Aufidius, Coriolanuss arch rival.
However, the two warriors find a strange kinship until its shattered.
Oyelowo jokes that at one performance up in Scotland, the traveling troupe played to an audience of two.
It was a seminal moment of my career, he says.
Thats when he became fascinated with the play and with Shakespeare.
Thats definitely an ambition, Oyelowo confirms.
Seeking more information, he flatly tells me: I dont know.
But count me in if they all say yes.
Next up for Oyelowo is a comedy series he starred in for Apple TV+ calledGovernment Cheese.
Coriolanusruns at the National until November 9.
