David Oyelowo on the dark reality of solitary confinement in ‘Newborn’

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:13Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It seems I've known my guest David Oyelowo, actor, entrepreneur, director, and producer, since Red Tails, where I met him at his screening at Red Tails. But what I've always been fascinated by him as an actor is he so often plays characters who have to deal with the effects of institutions. I was thinking about your performance in Nightingale, or even in Redtail, but also in your most recent movie, in which you're starring, Newborn, but Queen of Cotterweight. Some of these characters you are attracted to in these starring roles of people or men who are dealing with the way institutions can have a pernicious effect on people.

0:52Where does that come from for you? Gosh, I clearly have a David and Goliath syndrome. but but i think i like to think those are the relatable stories you know we we all are in some ways drawn to the quote unquote hero's journey in a sense and i think the hero's journey is defined by overcoming what feel like insurmountable odds and i think few things feel more insurmountable than institutions i guess it's interesting too because these characters are so unlike you. So often these are characters who don't have spiritual lives in the same way that you do. And I feel like they're kind of untethered.

1:31And I think you go through some great lengths to kind of show what that can do as somebody who understands what it's like to feel your feet on the ground, to understand your relationship to spirituality. They play these characters who are often bereft of that thing. Goodness, this is indicative of the fact that we have known each other for a long time because you got deep very quick. I hope we're recording that. But, yeah, you know, I do find that my own faith, my family, my friends are an incredibly grounding component of my life. A lot of people don't have that in their life or if they do have it, it becomes about, certainly in terms of these stories I choose to tell, what unmoors you from that?

2:17You know, in terms of Chris Newborn, he is married, he is in love, he's in the middle of a moment where his brother has gone through rehab and is about to go to college. You know, that's the beginning of our movie. And then something comes along, an inciting incident comes along that unmoors him from all of those things that have him grounded. And the film is basically about trying to get back to something. You know, after the seven years of solitary confinement, he's trying to get back to his wife, trying to get back to his son, trying to get back to his humanity, having been so dehumanized. And the question becomes, will he succeed?

2:58We're talking about being grounded with our old friend David Oyelowo. He's currently starring in Newborn. You said faith. But I think for me, it's faith or fear. But I think for these characters, so often it's fight or flight. Yeah. And they're wrestling with that. And that's something I see you do a lot with these characters, trying to reorient themselves because their impulse is so often to do harm just out of fear. But they're fighting. You can sort of see, especially in the case of Chris Newt, he's somebody who knows how to use his hands. And when that gets away from him, you can sort of see he's almost looking at his hands like, what's happening to me?

3:39Like he's being possessed by something. Well, to be a black man in America is a deeply challenging thing. And I say that as someone of Nigerian descent, who lived in Nigeria for seven years, and who spent a lot of time on the African continent. And it is a different thing to exist as a black person when you are part of the majority, as opposed to when you are part of the so-called minority. I say so-called because the negative connotations of being part of a minority are becoming more and more apparent to me, you know, because that words matter. And being called a minority links to being minor as opposed to a major and therefore more peripheral as opposed to more worthy of being platformed.

4:29But these are all the things that you are dealing with, especially in America and as a black man specifically, whether it's Bass Reeves or Chris Newborn or Martin Luther King or one of the Tuskegee Airmen. I would even say Queen of Contwey, he's somebody I also was dealing with. But it's about the international scale of this, though. It's not just here on this continent, although it's certainly more pernicious here. But it's more pernicious here. And I would say in relation to what you're talking about in terms of that struggle, the fight or flight, you know, when we're talking about Robert Katende in Queen of Cartway, or we're talking about Sorette Kama in the United Kingdom, you know, these are characters who are, I would argue, tethered to community in a different way than African-Americans.

5:23men are here in America. These are characters you play who so often have to ask themselves how I judge myself. And then they have to get out of that. That's what I find so interesting. And we just talked about Othello, which is the original version of this story. About unreliable narrators. About who do you trust? About where is your faith? Are you part of an institution? Are you being judged as a person of color because of an institution? yeah but i think you know the universal is found in the specific if you look at films that i'm incredibly enamored with you know like there will be blood is my favorite film of all time i think daniel day lewis's character in that film everything you're saying i think is applicable to him in terms of institutions in terms of fight or flight in terms of fear or faith in terms of the complexity of the character is he a hero is he a anti-hero is he a villain you know these are all questions that I think are the questions that we ask ourselves as human beings.

6:25It's what makes us human. But these are certainly all questions that we can ask of Othello. Yes. That he asks of himself. Absolutely. Which is why it's so transportable to era to era, because these are questions that will always be with us. You know, it's so interesting. When I first played Othello, It was at the New York Theatre Workshop in New York about 11 years ago. Now myself and Daniel Craig. Daniel played Iago in that production. Sam Gold directed it. And I really resisted playing Othello. I turned it down three times. Because it felt obvious to me, for me as a black actor, to be playing Othello.

7:11it felt like you know like like for young actors or you know actors who are beginning to gain a bit of notoriety it's like okay when are you going to do your hamlet and for me as a storyteller i'm always trying to find the thing that is unexpected the thing that if you're going to do it it has to earn its right to be made it has to earn its right for me to leave the house to be perfectly frank and uh it wasn't till sam gold started to talk about the syndrome of what is it to be as derided and celebrated for the same thing as the same person your excellence your achievements your attributes equally elicit people loathing you and loving you and i thought oh that's that's an interesting way in as a black man at that time in the era of obama who was just coming to the end of his uh tenure as president over eight years in a time where oj simpson was very much back in the culture because of docu-series and tv shows that what that were on like what is it to have that thing that you cannot change about yourself combined with attributes that you've worked on in yourself elicit hatred and love and that sort of took it outside of oh david yellow was doing his othello for me um and and made it feel potent relevant and urgent in a sense but as you're talking about these things though david i just find rich small these are all qualities that apply to newborn yeah i mean he celebrated in his house for his determination right uh for his apparent sense of self-possession right although he's able to project and this is something else about these characters too they can reject one thing if they're feeling something else so they're kind of acting in real time aren't they yeah gosh i i feel like i'm having a therapy session.

9:19But yes, I guess that is right. I guess that is right. And it was, you know, is he duplicitous? Is he unreliable? Is he a man of courage and honor? Is he someone who is reneging on his responsibility as a father and a husband? These are all the questions. But the thing I will say, you know, I shadowed a gentleman called Richard Rosario in playing this role, And he was wrongfully convicted of murder for 25 years. He served 20 of those years and was in solitary for seven years. And that to me is the unthinkable part of all of this. Like I can relate to, you know, my character being a father, being a husband, being a brother to someone who he deeply loves.

10:08But the effects of solitary was the thing that I had to dig the deepest on in talking to Richard Rosario and talking to Shaka Senkhor, who wrote a beautiful book about his incarceration called Writing My Wrongs. in reading a book by Albert Woodfox, a gentleman who had been in solitary for over four decades, like 40 years, unthinkable in a sense. And so that was the big challenge. That was the thing that, you know, even though I tend to gravitate towards characters that I go, okay, I need to have some access point. What is drawing me to this character? What is repelling me from this character? What am I scared about in relation to playing this character?

10:54But with the solitary component, I was fascinated by A, the fact that it's so prevalent still in American society, 80 ,000 people, men, women, and children are in solitary confinement today in America. And for a practice that prevalent that I had no idea was still happening to that degree to be taking place. And these people are, you know, we talk about the prison industrial complex somehow being tied to rehabilitation. Well, that is the opposite of rehabilitation. And it is as punitive as it gets. How do you get back to anything akin to wholeness after having endured that? We'll take a break.

11:36The doctor's in. My guest is David Ayello, our old friend. He's currently starring in the film Newborn. It's the treatment. There's more to come. Stay with us.

11:49David Oyelowo:this is kim masters host of the business on kcrw every week we take a deep dive into the deals and the drama that shape hollywood from the power plays in the boardroom to the creative battles on set we bring you the inside stories behind the entertainment headlines check out the business part of the npr podcast network

12:10he's still here my old friend david well thank goodness he hasn't left it's the treatment uh his newest film as actor and producer is is newborn first of all you're working with with with nate parker yeah uh who is like you a kind of a multi-hyphenate yeah and and you guys have formed kind of a partnership haven't you yeah we we met on that film that you and i essentially met while I was doing called Red Tails. And we actually shot that 17 years ago. It came out a few years later, which is I think when I met you. So Nate and I have known each other for a long time and we have a lot in common, not least our perspective on storytelling and the importance and the potency of it.

12:53If you look at films that he's made, American Skin, Birth of a Nation, films that I've made, Selma being one, United Kingdom being another, Bass Reeves being another, They all at their core have these men, and of course, because of who we are demographically black men, who are somehow pushing towards something I like to think aspirational, both in terms of their identity whilst battling injustices along the way. And so that commonality that we have, plus the challenges we face in terms of making things and essentially having to at some point hand them over to people who don't share our values, who don't deem what we've made as prioritists as we do.

13:38And so we just decided, how do we break this cycle of making things that we lose control of and don't get properly remunerated for? And so we started our own streaming platform called Mansa. which is an AVOD streaming platform. So it's fueled by advertising, but it's basically to have an umbrella for all of this undervalued content being made by black and brown people for a global audience. And black culture is global culture. You know, we drive the culture where there's music, food, sports, entertainment. And so to go on these other streaming platforms where it's a banner, it's a bucket, it's a Black History Month thing, You know, that's just not a true depiction or demonstration of how potent what we do is.

14:29Given that we are now seeing the pendulum swing. Yes. And all these things you're talking about, about stories by people of color, created by people of color, don't receive the kind of priority that they got when we were a hot button topic of five years ago. And there has now been a systematic diminution where DER initiatives have been pushed away. What does it feel like now to have this venture that you guys have in a world where we're being told that we're devalued, although the appetite in the African-American community for entertainment is not diminished, nor has it diminished worldwide? It's incredibly empowering, as I said, but it's also validating of the fact that we were doing this before the murder of George Floyd.

15:20And as you say, we became a hot button subject. And it just shows that these initiatives, these espousements by institutions about leaning into our stories, our people sharing the pie, so to speak, it's not bone deep. It's only when their feet are put to the fire. You know, I saw this when Oscar So White broke out in the wake of... You're the center of all. Yeah, yeah, with Selma, you know, that precipitated Oscar so wide. And for a time, you know, there was cultural correction, but the pendulum always inexorably seems to swing back. And I think the reason that is, is because of the potency and the power of storytelling.

16:05You know, it's not that different from news. You know, with story, you are shaping narrative. You are shaping how people see themselves. You are shaping education. You are shaping accountability. You are shaping perception. And that's a very, very powerful tool. And if a supremacist mindset is tethered to power, then the sharing of that is something that supremacy never wants to do, let alone with the people who your identity is built on their diminution. You know, so it's going to be with us until we have our own ecosystems that are not reliant on those with a supremacist mindset who also have access to green light power.

16:59You know, we just have to build ecosystems outside of those systems. And how's that going? Because you guys are built, you've built an ecosystem. We've built one, but it's a kind of a beautiful experiment. You know, this is something that hasn't quite been done like this before. In some ways, we're following in the wake of Taylor Swift, of all people, you know, in terms of what she did. I know. I know. Me and Taylor Swift. Whoever thought that would be a sentence? Why are you laughing so hard, Elvis? I'm just thinking about something else. Don't even pay attention to me. It's the truth. My guest who finally linked himself to Taylor Swift.

17:35We've been waiting for this for years. as our old friend David on yellow. He's starring in the film Newborn, which is AMC Theaters. It's the treatment, by the way. I've said this to you before, but so often you play characters and I feel exhausted after I watch them because I can feel the physical demands that these people have made on you. We talked about the incredible scene. We see Dr. King washing dishes and what that, he's sort of finally letting his defenses down and trying to do this thing that everybody does, but he can't because of the threat outside. So these people are trying to do the everyday.

18:05at the same time they're dealing with the demands that the world has made on them. I mean, that's something these poles of opposition that are constantly warring with each other is something that really fires you up. Ah, man, I wish it wasn't that way. Because it's, even hearing you talk about it, I'm exhausted. I'm like, who would want to do that? Who is this person you're talking about? I'm such a happy person. I live such a happy life. But yeah, you're right. You're right. I am drawn to these roles that every time it feels like Everest. And this one doubly so. I mean, I had a very, very challenging circumstance with this one, Elvis.

18:44My dad was battling colon cancer. He was in stage four colon cancer. And I said to him, there's this film, because he was living with us at the time while he was in this state. And I said, but I'm not going to do it, Daddy, because I can't be away from you while you're dealing with this. And he insisted I go do the movie. You know, he had heard me talk about it. He knew what it was about. And he insisted, which was so beautiful to me because he resisted deeply the idea of me being an actor when I was younger. You know, immigrant parents very much tethered to academia. He just didn't understand the arts.

19:23But he became my number one fan through the course of my career. And so, you know, I listened to my dad, I went to do the movie, and he passed away on the morning of the first day of shooting. My pickup time was 5am and I got the call at 2am before going in to start the film. And, you know, I watch the film now and I can tell that I was, you know, in a place that was specific, shall we say, in relation to that loss. But it felt weirdly commensurate with the character I was playing. but the relief is that this guy I was playing, Chris Newborn, his whole drive was trying to find his way back to love, find his way back to connection, find his way back to family, find his way back to sanity.

20:18If it was purely a downward spiral outside of a need to get to those things, I think it would have been pretty unbearable. Well, I guess our therapy session is over. My guess is David Yole. Yes, I know. don't forget to get your parking valet his new film is newborn it's always a pleasure to have you here David Oyelowo and by the way happy birthday thank you I appreciate that always a joy to be with you Elvis

20:55an actor whose impact has hit the stage and screen David Oyelowo is also a producer He stars in and produces the new film, Newborn, directed by Nate Parker, which is now playing at AMC Theaters. Other conversations with actors with enormous ambition, including previous interviews with David Oyelowo, at the archive, kcow.com slash thetreatment. And kcow.com slash the treat is our ongoing weekly series where creators talk about the moments that inspired them. This pair has created Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Etoile. It's Amy Sharon Palladino and Dan Palladino looking back at influences on vinyl that span from music to comedy.

21:49This show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist To Better Days, everyone, I'm Elvis Mitchell It's The Treatment

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