Are fans ready to see Selma’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. aka David Oyelowo transition from playing one of history’s greatest activists to taking on the role of a convict?
According to reports, Oyelowo, who garnered critical acclaim for his portrayal of King, is changing his pace by playing an escaped convict, who holds a young woman hostage in the fact-based drama Captive.
“I like to mix it up and that’s definitely the case here,” Oyelowo told “TODAY’s” Savannah Guthrie. “I’m playing Brian Nichols — even though, like you say, he’s a man who did some bad things. The amazing thing about his story for me is that he’s a murderer and he’s taken a meth addict hostage and somehow… good came out of it.”
“The fact that it was two broken people and as I said a miraculous outcome… I mean, Ashley Smith has never touched meth since that night. She was captive to that drug and something that happened that night just switched something for her,” Oyelowo said of what inspired him to take on the role.
And while Oyelowo feels Nichols’s story is quite miraculous, he “has no interest in exonerating Brian Nichols for what he did.” But he does feel like “he [Nichols] was an instrument of good for Smith during that night.” He continued, “There are people whose lives are broken by what he did that day. But I’m a big believer in the fact that light shines brightest in the dark.”
And while this role sounds like a winner — a possible award winner — we wonder how fans will react should Oyelowo receive a nod for his upcoming role. After all, as history has proven, unless a Black actor takes on the role of a slave, convict, or drug dealer, their chances of receiving a coveted best actor nomination are slim. Take for instance Denzel Washington, who was snubbed year after year by the Academy until he played a crooked cop in Training Day.
While this may sound like a stretch, we’re calling it now…
