If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them.
Interpretation
To portray humans authentically, one must capture their complexity and multidimensional nature.
David Oyelowo emphasizes that in order to truly represent human beings in any medium, it's essential to showcase their complexities and multifaceted personalities. A well-rounded portrayal involves capturing both their strengths and weaknesses, ultimately leading to a more authentic and relatable depiction of the human experience.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about character development in literature and film.
I had always known that I couldn't play Dr. King purely out of my own ability as an actor. When you look at him give those speeches, you can tell that he is taken up by something other than himself. He is flowing with an anointing that is directly from God.
I grew up watching period dramas, as we all did in the 1980s and '90s - endless adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens - and I loved them. But I never saw anyone like me in them, so I decided to find a story to erode the excuses for me not doing one.
You will never, I think, fully conquer the play. Every night, you see this Everest before you. It's that two, three hours and the audience, and you'd better tell the truth.
Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient when we are not being leaders or kings or in the center of our own narrative driving it forward.
Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice. I intend to be part of the solution and not the problem. You've just got to keep on banging out good performances.
What we usually do to great men and women is relegate them to homogenised heroism. Their words and actions become soundbites and images in a way that gives us an excuse not to act bravely in our own lives.
You love all your characters, even the ridiculous ones. You have to on some level; they're your weird creations in some kind of way. I don't even know how you approach the process of conceiving the characters if in a sense you hated them. It's just absurd.
The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.
Theater has an incredible capacity to move people to social change, to address issues, to inspire social revolution.
Far from being dead, physical media has years of life left and must be preserved because there is no better alternative.
Flaubert called himself a human pen; I would say that I am a human ear. When I walk down the street and catch words, phrases, and exclamations, I always think - how many novels disappear without a trace! Disappear into darkness.
Real fashion change comes from real changes in real life. Everything else is just decoration.
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