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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an I Heart Podcast.
- [00:05]
Sophia Bush
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- [01:17]
David Oyelowo
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- [01:25]
Ryan Reynolds
So I thought it would be fun.
- [01:27]
David Oyelowo
If we made $15 bills, but it.
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Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:39]
Podcast Host
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- [01:40]
Sophia Bush
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Podcast Host
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- [02:16]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [02:46]
Sophia Bush
Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to Work in Progress, friends. We are joined today by a guest who's been here before, who absolutely moved me, inspired me, got me so fired up about everything from art to existence. And he's back today to do it again. We are joined by none other than David Oyelowo. He's here to talk to us today about his new Apple show, Government Cheese, which is set in 1992, 1969 in the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles. The series follows the Chambers family, an African American family living here in the Valley, and the chaos that arises after burglar turned inventor Hampton chambers, played by Mr. Oyelowo, returns from prison. David is an exceptional human and an exceptional artist who you know from winning, I mean, so many awards, it would take me too long to list them all, but who you also know from coming on the show to share about his upbringing in London and Nigeria, his path to artistry, fatherhood and faith. And today we're going to dive into what it really means to be creating and to trust in where we're going as a society in a year like this one. Let's dive in with David. Hi, David. I'm so happy to see you.
- [04:33]
David Oyelowo
You too. In person this time.
- [04:34]
Sophia Bush
I know. It's so nice to be off of Zoom and sharing a couch and also not on strike anymore.
- [04:41]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, yeah, we can talk freely this time. I know I was having to be very cagey about. I think it was Bass Reeves back then.
- [04:48]
Sophia Bush
Yeah.
- [04:48]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [04:49]
Sophia Bush
It was an interesting time to interview you about this beautiful project you'd made because we were technically also not allowed to promote things. And I remember feeling a bit like we were playing Mad Libs, being like, so the thing I know on the box looks cool. I don't know.
- [05:10]
David Oyelowo
I know we had to dance around it a bit, but, you know, the reason I was so keen to kind of talk to you again is actually, weirdly, not being able to promote a project meant we got to talk about such far reaching subjects. And it was. It was actually cool to have just a really good conversation.
- [05:26]
Sophia Bush
It was so nice. It was fun when the team, you know, we do the overviews every couple months of who's coming. And I was like, david's coming back?
- [05:34]
David Oyelowo
Yes.
- [05:35]
Sophia Bush
And my whole team was like, we really feel like the two of you bonded. I said, we did. I just love him.
- [05:40]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Likewise.
- [05:41]
Sophia Bush
Yes.
- [05:42]
David Oyelowo
You're a wonderful spirit.
- [05:43]
Sophia Bush
Oh, you too, my friend. So, as you know, normally when. When we sit down with people, I really like to go back and, you know, talk about your childhood and shared those stories with us. You know, our work in progress audience knows many beautiful details about your background, but you shared something with me just before we started recording, which kind of feels like a. I don't know, a little energetic connection to that. You were talking about how since we've last seen each other, now you've got two kids out of the house.
- [06:16]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:18]
Sophia Bush
Is. Is it sort of surreal as a father, you know, to look at these young people that you've raised and see them kind of out in the world beginning to figure out their own life and education and journey when they're not coming home and you don't get to make sure they're safe and tucked into.
- [06:38]
David Oyelowo
Bed anymore, not only does it feel surreal, it feels both very natural and also really unnatural all at the same time, which is a very discombobulating feeling. You know, the pandemic, as we all know, was an incredibly challenging time for the world, globally speaking. But there were some really beautiful things that came out of that. I think for a lot of people. Certainly that was the case for my family. We were suddenly in the house together for a very long period of time. And the thing we came to discover is we really like each other. And it was the kind of proximity to each that we never would have had without that kind of generational event. And, you know, my wife and I have four kids, three boys and a girl, and we just became even closer than we already were. And the extraordinary thing was, even though community and friendships and family is a big thing in our lives, it was a moment where we kind of went, gosh, we are enough for each other. You know, we. We. We were. Thankfully, we're blessed with a lovely property where we have a decent amount of space. We had four dogs and six chickens and two parrots. And, you know, we sort of had this whole existence. But it meant that. That when the pandemic was over and when life started gaining some kind of semblance of normal, normality again, we really missed each other when we weren't in proximity to each other in the same way. So to have had that and then suddenly we go from six in the house to four in the house was really difficult. I remember taking my Cause. My second son left first. He's now at drama school in London. He's in his second year now, and we were at LAX dropping him off. And I was trying to be very brave and it was a real out of body experience for me because one of my most stark memories is the moment I was leaving home to go to the exact same drama school at pretty much the same age as Caleb, my second son. And it's the only time I can remember seeing my mom sob with tears. And it's an indelible memory of mine. And we were at the airport and I was like, and I'm going to be strong, you know, don't let's not make this about me. And my wife was taking him to London. So they turned a corner and the moment they were out of sight, I made a sound I will not replicate here because it's incredibly ugly. But out loud in the airport and my, My daughter was holding my hand and she went, dad, are you okay? And I was not okay.
- [09:41]
Sophia Bush
No, of course.
- [09:42]
David Oyelowo
I. I just was not okay. And it was three weeks of real devastation I, I felt. And my wife is sort of better at these things than me. Certainly when it comes to our kids. I, she has a delayed reaction. I'm instantaneous. It's like right there. So. And then my eldest son. Oh, well, my younger brother's out the house. It's time for me to leave as well. So in like about the space of three months, you know, we were half empty nesters, as I like to say. And yeah, but that's exactly what you're training your kids or you're cultivating your kids into the ability to be able to leave and hopefully fend for themselves and be good citizens and all that kind of stuff. So that's the natural part. The unnatural part is just how hollowed out felt anyway, with them no longer in the house.
- [10:37]
Sophia Bush
Yeah. I mean, their whole lives they've been with you and you get used to the rhythm of your home as a parent and the sounds and the footsteps and you know, when they're little, their little heartbeats when they fall asleep at night. I can't. I sort of can't imagine it. But what an amazing thing that in. I don't even know what the word is I'm looking for. It's surreal, but it's also so real.
- [11:02]
David Oyelowo
Yes.
- [11:03]
Sophia Bush
That you got to stand and know exactly how your mom felt. Felt. You know, you got to be in that moment. You're. You're watching one of your sons go to the exact same school. Like, does it, does it sort of take you back to when you did it and then also just feel like a completely new journey at the same time.
- [11:22]
David Oyelowo
Well, it really typifies that we are part of this cycle of life, this web that's being beautifully woven over time, generationally speaking. The fact that a school I went to, and I remember going to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and being the only Black student in 300 students, you said that. And my son is now there with diversity as a real thing at that school. And he doesn't even have a thought about that. Like when I tell him what I my situation was, he can't get his head around it because it's just so antithetical to what his is. And that's beautiful. It's beautiful to see progression in a generation. But similarly, my dad did not want me to be an actor at all.
- [12:23]
Sophia Bush
You a jester?
- [12:24]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [12:26]
Sophia Bush
I remember that from last time.
- [12:27]
David Oyelowo
Or he said, why do you want to go and be a jester? You know, so. But that was. It's that thing where you cannot be what you cannot see, so to speak. And my dad couldn't see a path for me. My son could see a path for him through me and was able to take it for granted. So that's beautiful. That's something I just feel so proud of. And people often ask me if I'm trepidatious about him becoming an actor because, as you know, it's a very, very trepidatious profession. But I can't be that way because it would be hypocritical, bearing in mind my parents attitude towards it. Thankfully, he's very good. You know, I would have told him if he wasn't. It's all subjective, but I definitely would have done him that favor. And he's genuinely passionate about it. So, you know, it's kind of a beautiful thing to witness.
- [13:21]
Sophia Bush
Do you, as you prepared him to go off to drama school, did you work with him? Did you give him any sort of inside tips on how you get into a script? How did you do that?
- [13:31]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's incredible. Kids absorb so much more of what you do than what you say. So it's extraordinary just how much just from watching me prepare for a role or how I research or, you know, being on set with me, it's extraordinary how much he had already internalized. But, you know, I did help him with his audition pieces and, and things like that. And also just with advice, you know, drama school is a very vulnerable circumstance to find yourself in because often you're the big fish in a little pond where you've come from and you're a tiny fish in this big pond. All of a sudden everyone there is talented. Everyone has gone a journey to be accepted into this prestigious conservatoire. And that in and of itself is quite discombobulating. But there are syndromes, you know, the first year there's are stripping away because you've picked up bad habits. Your body is something that is being pushed, pulled and prodded. In order for it to be able to, as we call it, find your zero, you know, you need to be able to play the prince and the pauper. In order to do that, you have to know what neutral is. And so you're stripping away a bunch of stuff. You feel incredibly vulnerable because everyone else in your class, it feels like they're better than you at being an actor. Whether it's dance or fight or accents or whatever it's. And he's going at the age of 18, 19, so you're still forming as a person. So I was able to really, through my own experience, talk to him about what to anticipate, so to speak, but also just to help him realize that his journey is very different, is going to be different than anyone else's journey. He actually didn't want to go to Lambda because I had gone there because he was. He's very allergic to the idea of anyone thinking of him as gaining anything because of who his dad is or where his dad has been. But ultimately Lambda was just the best of the schools or he felt it was the best of the schools he auditioned at. But yeah, you know, that's been the joy as to now especially because now he's in his second year. We have very in depth conversations about acting and. Cause he's so. He's drunk with it in that way that I remember being when I was his age. And that's a really wonderful thing because I am a forever student of acting and storytelling. And so to have those kind of conversations with my own son is really beautiful.
- [16:12]
Sophia Bush
That's beautiful. I think there's something, there's something so beautiful about being an artist because it is that the potential at least of being able to remain an eternal student, being able to be curious forever. And I would imagine there's a. There's kind of a purity of, you know, a 19 year old boy finding his way. And as you said, you're, you're developing, your brain is still developing. He's finding his voice and his art and then also able to talk to his dad about. Must put you two in this really interesting Dance together.
- [16:52]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, it's, it's. I can always feel the moment where he pushes away because he wants to find his own way. And the moments where he leans in because he recognizes and appreciates he has a bit of a cheat code in terms of having a dad who's experienced a lot of the specifics of what it is to be an actor. Cause it's incredibly nerve wracking. Especially what he's dealing with now in the second year is you're already coming to the end of your training because the third year is you're now doing shows. And those shows are where agents are coming, producers, directors are coming, basically potential employee employers of yours or people or facilitators of yours in terms of agents. And so there is no real way that a drama school can fully train you for what it is to be a professional actor in terms of the day to day. No one can teach you how you are going to react to the sheer amount of rejection that you will have to endure. The financial insecurity that comes with that. How do you deal with bad reviews? How do you deal with doing eight shows a week? When you've been at drama school and you do three performances of a show now, you're professionally expected to turn up every day at a certain amount of time. And no matter whether you've had a cold, a bereavement, whatever, you're expected to be on that stage at a certain time, giving a performance that is worthy of the money paid by the people who are coming to see the show. Those are all things that you learn on the job. Even silly things. I remember the first time being on a movie set and seeing all these different colored bits of tape on the floor and going, are those. I don't, I know they're important, but I don't why, but why. And then I would see other actors walk up to this guy colored tape and hit that mark perfectly without looking down at it. That's something that I hadn't been taught at drama school. I think they, they do that more now at drama schools. They teach screen acting and the technicalities of it. But you know, that was like such a vulnerable making moment he has. I mean, I remember the day, the moment actually when I thought, oh, I think, I think he's got the bug, really. And it was on the set of Selma. He was playing my son in it. There was no dialogue and they'd set up this scene. The camera was facing this dining table and the chairs were all around the table. I watched my son and he Gosh, that was. So he probably was seven, eight. Something like that, maybe. Yeah, eight. And he walked onto the set, looked at where the camera was and then found the chair that was directly in line with the camera, sat in that chair regardless of anyone else who was gonna be in the scene, and just looked down the barrel of the lens smiling. And I thought, oh dear, here we go, here we go. And you know, he was sort of on a trajectory to being an actor, but he has been on set. So for him, he knows what a mark looks like because he's been there. He's so comfortable in that environment, which I think has given him a leg up to speak in a good way. But again, talking about these things with him is a real joy for me.
- [20:40]
Sophia Bush
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- [22:32]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [22:58]
David Oyelowo
Hey Meta, what's the weather tonight? Tonight will be clear with temperatures ranging.
- [23:01]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [23:04]
David Oyelowo
Hey Meta, Post this video on Instagram.
- [23:06]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [23:13]
David Oyelowo
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- [23:18]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [24:32]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [25:07]
Sophia Bush
One of the things that excites me about about it about for our friends at home, government Cheese is. It's this world that is so delicious to step into and look at. And all of these people is quirky and hilarious. And there was a moment when I first started watching you going, what is it? What is it about this show? And I like to watch them before I, you know, read the reviews. But then after the first episode, I'm like, okay, let me go read all the articles you've been doing about it. And you talked about how you've been in the time period before, and yes. How important the time period is to reflect on. Truthfully, you know, our history matters to us. If it didn't, they wouldn't be trying to ban all the history books.
- [25:59]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [25:59]
Sophia Bush
But also how refreshing it is for you as an actor to be in this period with no trauma, strife, no civil rights fight. No. You just get to be this family in this time and place. And I thought that's what it is. I haven't seen it when it hasn't been historic with the real heaviness of the history. And I was like, God, I'm having so much fun watching you have fun.
- [26:31]
David Oyelowo
Right, right, right, right. I mean, that's incredibly astute, because one of the phrases that has come up time and again from people who've watched the show is, I haven't seen anything quite like it before. And I think that's to do with the tone, that's to do with the characters, that's to do with this black family in the San Fernando valley in the 60s. But I think that's also to do with how indelible, from an African American standpoint, the 60s are in relation to strife, civil rights, racial unrest, trauma. And I have been someone who's participated in projects that I am deeply proud of that have showcased that very important part of America's history. But that is not the totality of what black people or people generally were experiencing in this country at that time. And that's a product or a byproduct of being marginalized. When you're marginalized, your story tends to be told in very compartmentalized ways. So if you're Hispanic, you are just constantly subjected to the narcos kind of narrative or being. You're very rarely seeing Hispanic characters that are lawyers and doctors and presidents and captains of industry and who are aspirational, but in a narrative, they will be the house cleaner or the. Or the gardener or the whatever, which is a part of that experience. It's not the totality of that experience. If you're a woman, you're constantly objectified or you're.
- [28:22]
Sophia Bush
You're the girlfriend.
- [28:24]
David Oyelowo
Yeah. You're the arm candy of the. You know.
- [28:26]
Sophia Bush
Yeah.
- [28:26]
David Oyelowo
And that is part of the experience. It's not the totality of the experience. If you're African American, you're a criminal, you're a drug dealer, you're a slave, you're whatever, you know that there are black people who have been those things in American history and life. But that is not the totality. As someone of African descent myself, you know, it's the African despot. It's the flies on the little baby's face. It's all of those tropes and caricatures which, the more prevalent they become, the more oversized and outblown they are in people's minds as the truth of what those people are experiencing.
- [29:05]
Sophia Bush
Well, when the oppression becomes the identity, when the suffering becomes the identity.
- [29:13]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [29:14]
Sophia Bush
You know, when. When. For so long, I remember hearing Naomi Watts talk about this that, you know, I don't remember what the script was. Just the thing she said rocked me when she said, oh, this was the first script I'd read in however many years of my early acting career where the woman I was auditioning to play was not the victim of a sexual assault.
- [29:33]
David Oyelowo
Wow.
- [29:34]
Sophia Bush
And I was like, wow. Oh, you know, because when you were trying to get a role on TV or whatever the case of the week, if you're a woman and it's that, it's that you. You stop, you start to forget. Not that it's not incredibly important to always know our history, to tell those stories, to not shy away from them or sanitize them or whitewash them, but I think it's important also to understand how things are sized in our kind of mind's eye. When you look at the flat map of the world, why have America has been drawn so enormously? And why has the African continent been shrunken on the map?
- [30:11]
David Oyelowo
Correct.
- [30:12]
Sophia Bush
It's the human version of that, to me, where we've outsized the reality of people's experiences. And, you know, I think back to years ago, you know, when moonlight was nominated for everything. I loved that movie. And I really love movies and TV shows that allow my black friends and actors I admire to shine. And that don't have to be about trauma.
- [30:39]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [30:39]
Sophia Bush
I like watching a group of women. You know, the reason I think Sex and the City was so revolutionary to women in my age range is because these were four successful women meeting for lunch on breaks from their high powered jobs and their busy lives. And they were just crushing it as these Women. And we were like, what does this mean? And you know, now we look back and we're like, no, not all of that aged so well. But at the time it felt like a shock.
- [31:08]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [31:08]
Sophia Bush
And it's. It's important to see people, as you said, spread into other spaces of their totality.
- [31:17]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [31:18]
Sophia Bush
And I don't think I'm. I would have necessarily put my finger on it so quickly had I not read all the things you said about it after I watched the first episode.
- [31:25]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [31:26]
Sophia Bush
But I was like, that's the thing. I'm like, that's it. I don't get to see this a lot.
- [31:31]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [31:32]
Sophia Bush
And you know, the, I mean, who, you know, wardrobe, the cars, the set deck, it's like every department head on your show deserves an award. It's so beautiful.
- [31:40]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [31:41]
Sophia Bush
But it must be, I don't know, it must be just like a different kind of joyful to get to go and do that comedy in that time.
- [31:52]
David Oyelowo
I mean, you've hit on the word. It's joy. It's joy to be able to celebrate a character, a family, a show that genuinely colors outside the lines. The quirk factor is something that, you know, you very rarely see with a black family because there are so few at bats for us as a people group. And so the reality is you're constantly feeling the need to explain your existence because you feel that if you're writing a script and you have a character who does something extraordinary, you feel the need for your first act to be contextualizing who that person is. So that by the time they do the amazing thing, you go, oh, that is amazing. Because they started here and then they did this and then they did that and then that happened and then there's the ending. Now, if you're a white male actor storyteller, the cheat code you have is you have 100 and something years of cinema and television that has given so much context to your existence and experience. That means that you can get to the dramatic stuff very quickly. You know, so when you see Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, or you see Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, or you see Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line and they're playing these anti heroes. Those are not heroes, they're anti heroes. Or when you watch the work of Martin Scorsese and you see people doing bad stuff, but you still go the journey with them, the reason you do that is because you have context for who that people group is. And so you are giving them the benefit of the doubt when you're Watching them going, but they're a human being, so let me invest in why they're making those choices.
- [33:57]
Sophia Bush
So would you say that context also gives you the space to imagine their redemption?
- [34:03]
David Oyelowo
Absolutely, because you're used to that people, group being worthy of redemption. If primarily what you've seen of Hispanic people is that they are domestic servants or they're criminalized or they're a part of some drug cartel, there's a part of your brain that is not disposed to their redemption when they are central in a narrative. So when you put them central in a narrative, you feel the need to do more legwork to contextualize why you should tether yourself to that protagonist and that ladens down the story. So there is literally, in my opinion, an. A correlation between what streaming has afforded and us having more of these stories. Because what happened in Hollywood is that for many years there was network which did what network did, which is to make sure that the advertisers were happy. And so the storytelling was, in my opinion, fairly basic. Because you just want it to be the kind of storytelling that you go make a cup of tea or you grab a drink, doing the commercials or whatever, or even better still, stay for the commercials. Let us sell you the soft drink.
- [35:18]
Sophia Bush
Let us sell you the stuff and.
- [35:19]
David Oyelowo
The burger and all that. That stuff. And so it was a sort of a transactional way to watch a story, whereas film elevated. I've got to get you out of the house. I've got to get you into the movie theater. So I've got to cultivate movie stars that are rarefied in a way whereby you as the audience go, that is an event. Yeah, so I'm going to leave my house. So who gets to be an event? Well, a certain demographic of person. And who gets to select who is an event? A certain demographic of person who then dictates whether something gets the requisite marketing and gets to be international. And so these are all circumstances where people are using their own bias to decide what is going to be culturally impactful right now.
- [36:00]
Sophia Bush
And then they tell you it's equated with value.
- [36:04]
David Oyelowo
Exactly. Oh, and they are not even having to tell you that the billboard, the posters, the marketing, the production value, the budget attributed to the show or the film is all telling you that. And the lack thereof for other people groups is also telling you how they are valued or not as well. But what streaming has done it is come along and giving us data of who's actually watching. So I can clearly see an uptick in representation on screen. The Projects I've been afforded the opportunity to be a part of. I don't think Bass Reeves happens in a world before streaming. I don't think Government Cheese does either. Because you now have data that's saying people like these shows, and not just black people want to see black stuff. You know, people, when they see humanity represented in a fun, dramatic, entertaining, thought provoking way, they will tune in. Now, when 12 guys in Burbank somewhere are just making all those decisions and deciding, no, they're not going to watch that, or they're not, or that that story doesn't have value and we're all sort of internalizing that lie that then becomes the cultural norm.
- [37:21]
Sophia Bush
So how do you. I mean, listen, you've gotta do your thing as who you are, as an artist, as an individual. Then there is the beautiful partnership, not only in your family, but in your work that you and your wife have. Your production company, you've done this deal with Apple, which is where the show comes from. You obviously understand it because you've done this as talent, you've done this as a producer. You have this hybrid world where you do it all at the same time. How did this show come to be in the first place? Because you do have the data. Now, you do know there isn't a hypothetical. Well, we don't know if the demo's gonna like that. I laugh. I think about years ago when Nia, who's my best friend and my better half when we started our business, she would hear a lot of like, well, you're not exactly the demo. And now we walk into rooms and do panels and she's like, like, I'm a black woman in my 40s with expendable income. I'm exactly the demo, right? And every panel she says it on, the whole audience goes crazy. And it's like my favorite moment of the day. And so for us, even when we analyze how to support women in the workplace, how to close the gender lending gap in the world of finance, the data is invaluable to us. Huge finance is hard enough, and a lot of people say entertainment's harder. So for people at home that are like, but then how did you get on the other side of it? How did you figure this out? You know, how did you begin to say, this is my moment. This is time to pitch this show? Did the show come to you? Did you go out and find it? Like, how does it come to be that we're sitting here in May of 2025 talking about this show that is on streaming you know, showing people these other avenues, metrics, families, worlds.
- [39:22]
David Oyelowo
It's a great, great question. And the primary element is tenacity. This show came to me in 2018, end of 2018, as a short film script. Paul Hunter sought me out and said, I have this idea based on my childhood growing up in the Valley, and you're the guy who I really want to do it with. And it's to play a version of my dad. He was in and out of prison, but he was this amazing guy. He was an inventor. He was a this. And I read the script, and I hadn't read anything like it before. I was actually dissuaded by my manager at the time from doing it because it was like, why do you want to go and do this little thing? But I saw something in it that was so unique. And I thought that, to me, is what artistry looks like. When I find something that I haven't seen the likes of before or I find something that I think has a special quality. That, of course, is what you're looking for. So, you know, I didn't have any expectations that it was gonna spin into a show, but we made this short film over four days in early 2019. And that quirky, unique quality that I felt on the page manifested in what we shot. And that became a proof of concept that we ended up taking to Apple and we spun into a show. And that has been the mark of a lot of the key elements in my career. It was the same thing with how I got to work with Ava DuVernay on Selma. It was sitting next to a guy on a plane, him watching on his iPad, me in a show that I'd done back in the uk, turning to me and saying, is this you I'm watching on my iPad? I said, yes. He goes, is putting money into movies a good idea? I said, well, give me some context. He said, well, there's this lady called Ava Duanet. She's doing a film called Middle of Nowhere. She asked me for $50,000 towards her film. I said, okay, let me read it. I read it. I thought this was fantastic. I said, not only am I gonna tell you to put money into that, I'm calling this lady and asking her if I could do her movie. Called her up. What? Because, you know, it was. It was the title, her name, and her number was on the COVID of the script. Called her up, and she said, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe you're calling me about. You were on my list. But I was like, there's no way you would ever do this. I said, this is exactly the kind of film I grew up wanting to be in. Because it feels like early Spike Lee to me. It feels like she's gotta have it mo better blues. It feels like that. And that's how I ended up doing that film for $100 a day. Again, my reps at the time told me, literally the phrase was, this is not the kind of movie you want to be seen doing, because it was a smaller movie. But I was like, I beg to differ there. And so that was a film I did with her. We made it for $200,000 all in. She ended up winning best Director at Sundance for that. And that gave me the tools I needed when we were struggling to get Selma off the ground to say, I found the lady to direct this movie.
- [42:33]
Sophia Bush
Yes.
- [42:33]
David Oyelowo
And that's how Ava ended up directing Selma. So the point being that how I have been very blessed to be where I am now is the projects that have been most meaningful to me have taken an average of 5 to 10 years to get off the ground. You know, Basri's was 10 years. Selma was seven years. Government Cheese was six years. The United Kingdom was seven years. And it's all about going, okay, I believe in that. And every single day I'm going to do something to move the needle towards it coming to fruition. And the entertainment industry is inherently fear based, not faith based. And if you are able to go into rooms with a degree of faith rooted in tenacity and how much energy you have put into the project, that's something people feel able to bank on.
- [43:28]
Sophia Bush
Yes.
- [43:29]
David Oyelowo
Because, okay, if you believe in it that much, I'm skeptical about it. You've done work that I respect. The combination of your advocacy for it, the things I've seen you do, and my slight trepidation about it, which is being offset by your disposition, is the thing that's gonna make me lean towards you. And, you know, Bass Reeves got rejected by the entire industry three times before it came to fruition. I put on the weight I needed to play Dr. King twice and had to then drop the weight because the film didn't go. So, you know, those are all moments where you could have gone, you know what? I just can't do this anymore. That's what it's. It takes. It's. It's tenacity.
- [44:16]
Sophia Bush
I love that. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. Do you want a home that smells as good as it looks? With Pura, you can customize your scent experience right from your phone. Choose from premium long lasting fragrances and let Pura plus and Pura4 elevate your space. It's scenting made smart just in time for summer. Pura Life is better when it smells good. Head to pura.com that's P-U-R-A.com and use code work for 20 off site wide there's nothing more pleasant than the discovery of unexpected beauty in everyday objects. And what's more unexpected than a beautiful toilet? An elegant, sleeked, curved, beautiful toilet. And you see this toilet is the Kohler Veil Smart Toilet in honed black. Its unique shape and color are so stunning that they actually inspired fashion designer and creative director Laura Kim to design a couture dress. Beauty inspires beauty. The sleek curved honed black veil Smart Toilet from Kohler and the long flowing black chiffon dress that Kim designed were born from the belief that design can transform how we live and feel. The Veil Smart Toilet with its bold design, intuitive touchscreen remote control and customizable cleansing features, creates an experience that is far beyond the expected. It can transform your everyday routine into something that is extraordinary. And don't we all deserve extraordinary like a gorgeous Laura Kim design dress? And if you don't know Laura Kim, you should design changes everything. Valesmart Toilet in Honed Black only from Kohler Discover the Vailsmart toilet and go behind the scenes of Kohler's partnership with.
- [46:09]
Ryan Reynolds
Laura Kim@kohler.com who needs headphones when you have glasses? Ray Ban Meta Glasses where style meets cutting edge tech. With discreet open air speakers and built in microphones you can play your favorite tunes.
- [46:21]
David Oyelowo
Hey Meta.
- [46:22]
Ryan Reynolds
Play hip hop music and tune into the world around you. But listening is just the beginning because because you can stay in the moment while your phone stays in your pocket as Meta AI provides answers to questions on the fly. Hey Meta, what's the weather tonight?
- [46:37]
David Oyelowo
Tonight will be clear with temperatures ranging.
- [46:38]
Ryan Reynolds
From capture and share moments.
- [46:40]
David Oyelowo
Hey Meta. Post this video on Instagram.
- [46:43]
Ryan Reynolds
You can even get Meta AI to make recommendations based on what you're looking at. Hey Meta, what can I make for dinner with what's in the fridge?
- [46:50]
David Oyelowo
You can make a delicious spinach and chicken salad or add the baby spinach to pasta with some garlic. Garlic shrimp.
- [46:55]
Ryan Reynolds
Cool Ray Ban Meta Glasses choose from a variety of classic Ray Ban frames all with Meta AI@meta.com AI-classes and don't forget to say hey Meta. Play iHeartRadio to enjoy your favorite radio stations, artists and podcasts on the iHeart app.
- [47:11]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [47:41]
Podcast Host
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- [48:18]
Sophia Bush
When you talk about, and you've said this a few times, that the things that you produce are gifts to your younger self, I think about that in terms of what you said about representation, how different it was in your class at Lambda versus how it is for your son.
- [48:40]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [48:40]
Sophia Bush
I think about what it means to get to see yourself and to know that your younger self is seen in the work you do. And now I think about how that tenacity, that self assuredness in a way, has to be a gift to him too.
- [48:59]
David Oyelowo
Yes.
- [49:00]
Sophia Bush
To know that thing you were convinced of when you were young and didn't have the proof but had the feeling is true.
- [49:08]
David Oyelowo
Yeah, I would say that's cultural. The gift of that, I think came from having about seven years in my youth where we moved back to Nigeria, and just to be in an environment where your marginalization, your anomalization is not prevalent, where you go, oh, everyone looks like me. Every opportunity on offer in this society is mine for the taking. And to have that be something you're around enough for it to become internalized mentally. Even though I now find myself back in the uk, now in America, in environments where that is not necessarily the case being a black man. But I felt it in my body enough. I have muscle memory. I have muscle memory of what it feels like to walk into rooms and not have to explain my existence or apologize for my existence. And then what starts to happen or what happened for me is that that disposition started being rewarded with people Leaning towards you. Because, you know, there's a phrase I use often which is people treat your home the way you treat it and people treat you the way you treat yourself to a certain degree. And it's a quality that I recognize hugely. With Sidney Poitier, for instance, there's no way he's achieving what he achieved when he did, considering the levels of racial discrimination that were going on in this country at that time. If he's not in a disposition that defies expectation, which has people kind of going, okay, I guess we'll give it to you, you know, And I think there is a degree of that, the way you move through the world. I mean, it's a generalization to a certain extent, but it's my living, lived experience. So it is specific to me that I know those years living in Nigeria were formative for me. And I will say this. It's something that you have to be careful about from a generalization standpoint. But slavery in this country, one of the things that it set out to do is to destroy the agency, the power, the self esteem of black people. It didn't succeed in doing those things, not totally, but it certainly stymied those things. And that is an active, it is an active means of engendering supremacy. You know, the way you achieve supremacy is for everything you do to suggest that you are supreme over the person you want to subjugate. And so you have that disposition of supremacy and then you subject the person you're oppressing to feeling lesser than. And that's the way you gain control. And we see it even till this very day, the things that are being attacked currently in this culture is all about a certain section of society feeling like it has power and supremacy over another. I don't care how you reframe it, how you try to excuse it. That's what it is.
- [52:50]
Sophia Bush
Well, you can't reframe it or excuse it because it's simply true. When you see a decorated general get fired and replaced with an alcoholic from Fox News, like what are we talking about? Right, just what are we talking about?
- [53:06]
David Oyelowo
But there's very, very clever language that gets used to excuse those things. There are very clever qualifiers. And systems of oppression are becoming more and more sophisticated.
- [53:22]
Sophia Bush
Yes.
- [53:22]
David Oyelowo
And you see that with slavery migrating into the prison industrial complex. You know, so it's, it's different phraseology. You're not a slave, you're a sharecropper, you know, and these are all things to be mindful of because the central thought is the same.
- [53:45]
Sophia Bush
And when you really think about the fact that for all of it requires kind of a both and right, like a willingness to hold dialectics, that many things can be true at the same time. And I think about what, for me, is sort of the seesaw of America, which is some of the most exquisite ideals of any nation in the world that we have often failed to achieve. And some of the most horrific acts done in the building of a nation with really incredible ideals, but that sought them out at the time it was founded for very few people, certainly not you and certainly not me. And when you. You see the kind of cyclical violence of white supremacy, you see the cyclical violence of patriarchy, it is not lost on me that when you talk about what a different world your son is experiencing, what a different world I experience as a woman and a woman who is a CEO of my life. And all of the things. The difference in my life to my mother's, the extreme difference in my life to my. My grandmother's. My grandmother who was born in a stone farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in Italy with no running water and no electricity.
- [55:04]
Ryan Reynolds
Wow.
- [55:06]
Sophia Bush
And I think about how so much of what fueled the building of this country that was hidden, the history they didn't want to teach and they really don't want to teach now, is that we used bodies as fuel.
- [55:21]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [55:21]
Sophia Bush
Largely black bodies.
- [55:23]
David Oyelowo
Y.
- [55:24]
Sophia Bush
And by happenstance, the harm done by the people doing that was also done to the women who look like me, who unfortunately have often cozied up to white supremacist patriarchy because they think it will protect them. And I'm like, girly, pops, it has nothing for you either. Run.
- [55:41]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [55:42]
Sophia Bush
And what's fascinating to me is the backlash. We see the fact that. But you were no longer allowed to discriminate against the best applicant. If that applicant were a woman, if that applicant were a black man, and so on down the line. No one wants to talk about the fact that the greatest recipients of DEI in America are white women. It is not lost on me that just in a generation where we have certainly not achieved equity to 400 years of a power structure for white men, but where we've gotten to pretty decent places as other groups, the backlash is so crazy.
- [56:23]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [56:24]
Sophia Bush
They want to eradicate diverse classes in colleges. They want to take away women's access to birth control and health care. And I just. I wonder to what end, because I also look around, and I know they don't have it the hardest. But I also know white men in this country are killing themselves at higher rates than anybody else.
- [56:51]
David Oyelowo
Right.
- [56:51]
Sophia Bush
So I'm like, well, clearly this isn't working for you either. I don't know. I don't know where. I don't really know where we go or what, what we do necessarily. When the backlash to even the illusion of more equitable power systems is so intense, do you feel like you, you are on the outside of it as a man of color, but also on the inside of it as a man, as a patriarch? Do you, do you kind of have to figure out how to hold all of these truths at the same time? Because you strike me, I know we don't know each other that well, but I do feel like we did the energetic, like, sparkly thing and now we're connected in that way. Like, you strike me as a, as a non toxic man. Yes, you are, I think, a wonderful father, a wonderful husband. You exemplify a really what appears to be healthy, kind, patriarchal energy. I'm like, that's a good dad, right? That's like my kind of guy. So, like, how do you, I don't know, how do you wrestle with all of this stuff? And also how do you leave all this stuff at the door and just find joy in the way you talk about with your show? How do you do it all?
- [58:18]
David Oyelowo
It's challenging. I don't feel on the periphery of it. I feel very much in the center of it. But the thing I know to be true is that foundations are incredibly important. Foundations dictate what the building is, how strong it's gonna be, how integrous it's gonna be, and whether anyone cares to admit it or not, the foundation, the building blocks of America are pretty gnarly. You stole a country and then stole the people to build that country. And that's foundational. Regardless of the tenets and the philosophies that came after that, some of which are incredibly beautiful, around equity, around how to build a society. But if the foundation is so compromised, if in the soil is murder and pillage and rape and all of these things that are also foundational to the creation of this country, whether people care to admit it or not, which again is why the history is being obfuscated, then the only way to offset that truth is repentance is to go, whoa, I didn't commit those things. But my forefathers, who are we are lionizing in this country and celebrating and therefore suggesting that they were above reproach, did perpetuate these things. And then there are descendants of people who are alive today who were the victims of what those forefathers perpetuated. At some point there has to be some kind of acceptance of the fact that what we all get to enjoy is built on an incredibly questionable foundation. And the only way you can move forward from that in a healthy way is the acceptance of that, the repentance on behalf of your forefathers for that, in order that you can have a chance to move forward better than that was.
- [60:45]
Sophia Bush
And now for our sponsors. Do you want a home that smells as good as it looks? With Pura you can customize your scent experience right from your phone. Choose from premium long lasting fragrances and let Pura plus and Pura4 elevate your space. It's scenting made smart just in time for summer. Pura life is better when it smells Good. Head to pura.com that's P U R A.com and use code work for 20% off site wide there's nothing more pleasant than the discovery of unexpected beauty in everyday objects. And what's more unexpected than a beautiful toilet? An elegant, sleeked, curved beautiful toilet. And you see this toilet is the Kohlerville Smart Toilet in Honed black. Its unique shape and color are so stunning that they actually inspired fashion designer and creative director Laura Kim to design a couture dress. Beauty inspires beauty. The sleek curved honed black veil Smart Toilet from Kohler and the long flowing black chiffon dress that Kim designed were born from the belief that design can transform how we live and feel. The Vail Smart Toilet with its bold design, intuitive touchscreen, remote control and customizable cleansing features creates an experience that is far beyond the expected. It can transform your everyday routine into something that is extraordinary. And don't we all deserve extraordinary like a gorgeous Laura Kim design dress. And if you don't know Laura Kim, you should design changes everything. Veil Smart Toilet in Honed Black only from Kohler Discover the Veil Smart toilet and go behind the scenes of Kohler's partnership with Laura Kim@kohler.com who needs headphones.
- [62:36]
Ryan Reynolds
When you have glasses? Ray Ban Meta Glasses where style meets cutting edge tech. With discreet open air speakers and built in microphones, you can play your favorite tunes.
- [62:45]
David Oyelowo
Hey Meta.
- [62:46]
Ryan Reynolds
Play hip hop music and tune into the world around you. But listening is just the beginning because you can stay in the moment while your phone stays in your pocket as Meta AI provides answers to questions on the fly. Hey Meta, what's the weather tonight?
- [63:00]
David Oyelowo
Tonight will be clear with temperatures ranging.
- [63:02]
Ryan Reynolds
From capture and share moments.
- [63:04]
David Oyelowo
Hey Meta, Post this video on Instagram.
- [63:07]
Ryan Reynolds
You can even get Meta AI to make recommendations based on what you're looking at. Hey Meta, what can I make for dinner with what's in the fridge?
- [63:14]
David Oyelowo
You can make a delicious spinach and chicken salad or add the baby spinach to pasta with some garlic shrimp.
- [63:19]
Ryan Reynolds
Cool Ray Ban Meta Glasses choose from a variety of classic Ray Ban frames, all with meta AI@meta.com AI classes and don't forget to say hey meta play iheartradio to enjoy your favorite radio stations, artists and podcasts on the iHeart app.
- [63:35]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's Oral Care Month, which means you can earn four times points on all your favorite oral care brands. Now through July 15th. Shop in store or online for items like Colgate Toothpaste, Listerine Mouthwash, Crest Mouthwash or Toothpaste Sensodyne Toothpaste, hello Toothpaste or gum flossers and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed for future discounts on gas or groceries. Offer ends July 15th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [64:05]
Podcast Host
Every business has an ambition. PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, PayPal later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.
- [64:36]
Sophia Bush
This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler Sophia Bush is here. Tell me how that feels to be a hot considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny? When you're actually more fluid with your sexuality. The swing goes from nobody gives a shit who you're sleeping with to you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? Hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen, these are the times, right? We've had like the most hopeful and happ be sections of the discussion and we have to have the heavy and the real because that's life.
- [65:23]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [65:25]
Sophia Bush
As you try to balance all of it for yourself and you. You mentioned earlier to be in joy in the work that you make you have it with your family? How do you do it? How do you balance? Are there practices you have not just as, you know, David the performer, but as David the man, what are your practices for keeping your sort of sphere space joyful?
- [65:57]
David Oyelowo
Well, I count my blessings. And you know, a huge part of that is my wife, my kids, my health. I get to do for work that which I love and would probably do for free. Don't tell Apple.
- [66:22]
Sophia Bush
Never, never for free.
- [66:23]
David Oyelowo
Never for free.
- [66:24]
Sophia Bush
A raise in season two.
- [66:27]
David Oyelowo
But it's that, it's that, it's counting my blessings. My faith is a huge component of my life personally. But you know, my wife and I have a two week rule. We're never apart for more than two weeks.
- [66:42]
Sophia Bush
I love that you do that.
- [66:43]
David Oyelowo
Yeah. So no matter where I am in the world, like we recently. So she had to be. So she had to be in Hawaii for a retreat. And then I was going to Qatar to set up a film and then I had to be in London. And this meant that we were going to go over by 14 hours. No, 14 days. No, we weren't gonna go over. We were gonna be apart for 14 days and like six hours or something like that. And it was the, the, the assistant's phones blown up. Right. Okay. So I am going to. I have to take her to the airport at this time that you have to change my flight because we can't. Oh, no, we're still at an hour over. We're still at. No, no.
- [67:32]
Sophia Bush
I love that it comes down to the hour.
- [67:33]
David Oyelowo
No. Cause we went over by 11 hours once and I can't do it. For me, like a. Once I commit to something that is it. And you know, I've been married for 26 years now, so it's working. It's working. But honestly, it is. It can sound a little cheesy. It can even sound like it's work. But love is something you work at.
- [68:00]
Sophia Bush
Yes.
- [68:00]
David Oyelowo
And when I talk about counting your blessings, it's going. I have someone I want to be back in proximity of. No, like, no more than 14. I'm already in trouble after like two days with my wife. So the point being. And we worked it out and we were well within the 14 days at.
- [68:21]
Sophia Bush
The end of the day.
- [68:22]
David Oyelowo
But it's the small things, actually, you.
- [68:25]
Sophia Bush
Know, but what that says to me is also it's promises made, promises kept.
- [68:30]
David Oyelowo
Yes.
- [68:31]
Sophia Bush
Love is something you work at. And I think if you wake up in your life and you realize you, quote, have love.
- [68:37]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [68:38]
Sophia Bush
That no one's working at Then you don't have love. Then you have a business partner or a roommate or whatever. And so even the fact that after 26 years, you two are like, hold on, six hours too many for me, I'm tickled by that. Because what it is to me is that the promise is so important.
- [69:00]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [69:01]
Sophia Bush
It's not just the rhythm you keep. It's that you commit to keeping the rhythm correct. It's beautiful.
- [69:07]
David Oyelowo
Right? Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, and I have kids who are healthy and who love Mommy and Daddy and like being in proximity of them. You know, I've seen what I've. I've been around great wealth, I've been around great fame. I've been around the things that people truly seem to value or aspire to. I'm telling you right now, for anyone listening who thinks that there is something out there in those realms that is going to transcend, if you have someone you like curling up on a couch with and you have food in your stomach, and you are happy and keen to be in proximity of people who may be your kids, maybe your spouse, maybe your family, maybe your friends, and the notion of not having to talk to each other and yet be comfortable around each other is yours. You have heaven on earth.
- [70:09]
Sophia Bush
Yeah.
- [70:10]
David Oyelowo
Because you're not having to work to be safe, to feel loved, to love, to touch, you know, all of those things. Nothing. There is no place. I've been to so many places in the world. There's no place I feel more like I'm in a heaven on earth situation than curled up on my couch with my kids, with my wife, maybe watching movie. Maybe we were just all laughing at each other. Whatever it is, that's as good as it gets here on Earth, guys. That's as good as it gets. And it's not to do with the couch. It's not to do with the movie. It's to do with the people. And that you want to be in proximity of those people. And so. So those are the blessings I count amongst other things. And that's where my joy comes from. And the reality is those things are finite. You know, I've lost both my parents. I know that these things are finite. And so every day you have them, they are to be embraced with a veracity that is just, you know, every ounce of energy within you, you.
- [71:21]
Sophia Bush
That's beautiful. And it's an. It's a lovely reminder to focus on the right things.
- [71:28]
David Oyelowo
Yeah.
- [71:29]
Sophia Bush
It seems that you're so practiced at it. That's a muscle that you work, that gratitude does it. Does it feel like something that will always be your work in progress or is. Or is that something else? Is it a project, an idea?
- [71:47]
David Oyelowo
It will always be a work in progress because you don't know what's going to come along to upend it. You know, when my. When I lost my mom, that was. That took my piece for years. You know, she had a brain aneurysm and she was in a vegetative state for three years. And I'm the eldest son and I felt the need to sort of look after my brothers and my dad. And I didn't do grieving particularly healthily. I sort of tried to push it away. And, and, and so the. I am still a work in progress when it comes to that. Just, just forgiving myself for things that I probably don't need to forgive myself for in relation to my. Oh, gosh, I. Maybe I should have been there to make sure she was taking the high blood pressure medicine and all the things, you know, that, that are love, you know, how much you miss someone is relative to how much you loved them.
- [72:50]
Sophia Bush
Yeah.
- [72:51]
David Oyelowo
So that's kind of healthy. But also if you're. If you're crippled by that feeling, that's unhealthy. So that's, That's a work in progress. All of it is a work in progress. I think that's the gift of life. I think, you know, you're given this project, which is your life.
- [73:07]
Sophia Bush
Yeah.
- [73:08]
David Oyelowo
And, you know, you're. You're ne. I'm never going to be the totality of the actor I aspire to be or the father I aspire to be or the husband that I aspire to be or the human being. Because fallibility is what is by definition what makes you a human being. And so. But the journey of that is where the excitement lies and the days where, oh, gosh, I think I was a pretty good father today. And then most days, oh, gosh, I didn't think I was a very good dad today, you know, so to be alive is to be in a work in progress circumstance. And, and I like being alive. So being a work in progress is indicative that we're still here.
- [73:55]
Sophia Bush
I love it. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and heart with us again. Today means a lot.
- [74:01]
David Oyelowo
Thank you. I always love speaking to you.
- [74:02]
Sophia Bush
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Ryan Seacrest
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David Oyelowo
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Podcast Host
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