David Oyelowo has described the opportunity to play Martin Luther King as an 'honour.'

David Oyelowo

David Oyelowo

Oyelowo will be back on the big screen at the beginning of February when he takes on the role of king in Selma, which is based on King's battle for equal voting in America. The movie sees him reunite with filmmaker Ava DuVernay and has already been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

And the British actor says that it is a role that he has always wanted to play and was thrilled to get the opportunity to fulfil that dream. Speaking on the red carpet in London, the actor said: "It's different playing a fictional person, of course. I mean, the level of preparation you have to have, especially when you're playing someone as well known, as revered as him, you can't afford to mess that up. So yeah, that's all part of it.

"But for me, getting to playing Dr King was just a huge honour, because I do think he was an extraordinary person. But he was just a person. A lot of the time people talk of him as an icon, as an historical figure ... he didn't think of himself that way and our job was to show you the human being."

Oyelowo leads an all-star cast in Selma, as Carmen Ejogo, Oprah Winfrey, tom Wilkinson, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Roth, Common, and Cuba Gooding Jr are just some of the other great names on board.

Oyelowo's central performance as King has received critical acclaim and he received Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for his work. However, the actor missed out on an Oscar nod as Selma picked up just two nominations.

Oyelowo can currently been seen alongside Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year, and he has completed work on Captive, Nina, and Five Nights in Maine. Nina is another biopic film for the actor, as he plays Nina Simone's manager Clifton Henderson. The movie sees him star alongside Zoe Saldana and Mike Epps while Cynthia Mort is in the director's chair.

Selma is released 6th February.


by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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