2:02

That was a scene from the

2:04

Golden Globe-nominated series Law Men, Bass

2:06

Reeves. David Oyelowo is

2:08

an Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actor

2:10

who rose to prominence for portraying

2:12

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and

2:15

Ava Dubernay's film Selma, and Peter

2:17

Snowden and the HBO film Nightingale.

2:20

He starred in several films and television

2:22

shows, including the Netflix film The Midnight

2:24

Sky alongside George Clooney. David

2:26

Oyelowo, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thanks

2:29

for having me. Always good to be here. It

2:31

seems to take years for many of your

2:33

projects to come to fruition. Eight years is

2:35

a long time. Yeah, I wish it

2:37

wasn't this way, but

2:40

for whatever reason, I seem designed to

2:42

be the guy who sticks it out.

2:45

You stuck it out because you were

2:47

passionate about this story. You felt like

2:49

this story was important. What was

2:51

it that made you feel that

2:53

way? What was it that you connected with this character,

2:55

with this person, Bass Reeves? I

2:57

had grown up like a lot

2:59

of kids of my generation, loving

3:02

westerns. They were on the TV

3:05

at Nauseam. Mum's

3:07

broom was my white

3:10

stallion, and I would

3:12

clip-clop around the living room with her being

3:14

upset that I was jumping all over the

3:16

sofa. I

3:19

was a fan of the genre, so to

3:21

speak. I didn't even

3:23

know that I was

3:26

missing something in terms

3:28

of the representation of black people

3:30

in that genre. It wasn't until

3:32

many years later, actually, as I

3:34

was digging into my research for

3:36

Bass Reeves, that I came to find out that

3:38

one in three cowboys was

3:41

black. In fact, the word

3:43

cowboy is a racial epithet.

3:46

They were actually called cowpunchers.

3:49

Because of the sheer amount of

3:51

black people who were cowboys, that's

3:54

the phrase. The boy of

3:56

it all is why it became cowboy.

3:58

I did not know that. you'd be

4:00

excused for not knowing that because the

4:02

representation of them in films that are

4:05

westerns or TV shows that are westerns,

4:07

graphic novels, whatever it may be, books,

4:10

is just not commensurate with how present they

4:12

were. All of the

4:14

characters that you seem to take on are

4:17

men on a mission, peacemakers, those

4:19

who are really important to the

4:21

story of America, but in

4:24

some instances, under-told stories.

4:27

Yeah, we see many story-centering

4:29

black people from a

4:31

historical context that are about

4:34

how we've been brutalized, how

4:36

we've been marginalized, how prejudice

4:39

has browbeaten us, but

4:41

very rarely, in my opinion, do

4:44

you see those triumphant stories where

4:46

we overcome, where we are triumphant

4:48

in a way that anyone and

4:51

everyone would deem that individual to

4:53

be a hero despite

4:55

the obstacles that they overcome? And to

4:58

me, that's where there is

5:00

a universal truth in relation to the

5:02

character that makes them aspirational, that makes

5:04

it so that regardless of your race

5:07

or country or ethnicity, you go, that's

5:09

someone I want to be like. And

5:12

so the combination of an aspirational character

5:14

that is the center of the narrative,

5:16

I think is the difference. Let's

5:19

talk a little bit about Bass Reeves.

5:22

He escapes enslavement amid the Civil

5:24

War, and the series

5:26

takes us through his career in law

5:29

enforcement during that period of Reconstruction. You

5:32

know, from the moment I heard this story, though, I

5:35

just couldn't wrap my head around this

5:37

black man during that

5:39

time period arresting white men.

5:43

What kind of man would you have

5:45

to be, or did you have to be, to be

5:47

Bass Reeves? Well, this is

5:49

why it was so exciting to

5:51

play him and to tell the

5:53

story, the whiplash it must have

5:56

engendered to within a very

5:58

short period of time. go

6:01

from being enslaved, fighting on the

6:03

side of the Confederacy, to now

6:06

you are empowered as

6:10

a purveyor of justice

6:12

to not only uphold the law,

6:14

but to arrest the very people,

6:16

a lot of them disgruntled

6:21

ex-soldiers who deem this new

6:23

world to be untenable, and

6:25

you are a constant representation

6:28

of what they deem to be untenable. Dangerous.

6:30

I mean, his life is on the line constantly. Absolutely.

6:33

Because the

6:36

job he's doing is inherently dangerous, but

6:38

because he's a black man doing it

6:41

as well, in a

6:43

world where in very recent memory,

6:45

he was chattel. He was to

6:47

be owned and to

6:50

be abused, used and

6:52

abused as the so-called master,

6:55

saw fit. And so that in

6:57

and of itself is an incredible

7:00

character to present at an incredible

7:02

time. The Reconstruction era is where

7:04

this is playing out beyond the Civil

7:06

War and before Jim Crow,

7:09

an extraordinary time to be a black person

7:11

in America. You had to recreate

7:14

based on probably historical documents, other

7:16

people in order to make a

7:18

composite of Bass Reaps because really

7:21

there's not much there about him.

7:23

You had to spend a lot

7:25

of time researching. Yeah. You know,

7:27

as you do your research, you start to

7:29

see the stories that come up again and

7:31

again and feel more plausible. And actually there

7:34

are court transcripts of some of the cases

7:36

that he had to give testimony

7:38

for in terms of people that he arrested.

7:41

You know, he did beat

7:43

his enslaver almost to death. He

7:46

did live with Native Americans for

7:48

a time. He was a failed

7:50

farmer. He was deputized

7:53

by Judge Isaac Parker, as played by

7:55

Donald Sutherland in our show. So there

7:57

are many things you can tell. together,

8:00

too, in terms of the poles

8:02

of reality around which you now

8:05

have to sort of build, like

8:08

you say, on the basis of research, on the basis of what

8:11

was going on at the time, and

8:13

the joy of storytelling, dramatizing the

8:15

life. Yeah. I mean, was

8:17

there a detail that just really stuck with

8:19

you, a legend or a story about him

8:21

that you're like, oh my gosh. One thing,

8:23

he was a wonderful marksman. Right. Like he

8:25

could really handle a gun, right? Yeah.

8:28

Yeah. And he was extraordinary

8:30

at several things. I think one of

8:32

the things that was true, and

8:35

we exhibit to a certain extent

8:37

in the show, is that he

8:39

was illiterate. He was denied the

8:41

ability to read incredibly bright. There

8:43

is a difference between being illiterate

8:45

and being whip-smart. He was whip-smart.

8:48

And what he would do, his wife, Jenny

8:50

Reeves, could read. And

8:52

when he would get the

8:55

information, the written down information of

8:57

the people that he had to go and

8:59

arrest, he would have her read them

9:01

to him once, maybe twice, and he

9:03

would memorize every single aspect of it

9:05

in order to go and arrest that

9:08

person. So he had an unbelievable mind

9:10

and was often the smartest guy in

9:12

the room. But he was a man

9:14

of few words, which is another thing

9:16

you see in our show. I got

9:18

to talk about it. Yeah. Because

9:21

I mean, in Westerns in general, there's

9:23

not a lot of dialogue. Right. And

9:26

this one in particular, there's a lot

9:28

of acting, a lot of

9:31

your acting is just in your face.

9:33

It's in your expressions. Where

9:35

did you have to go to in your mind

9:38

during these really powerful scenes where

9:41

you're contemplating, you're thinking through the

9:44

next action for your character for Bass

9:47

Reeves? Well, to be

9:49

enslaved at that time, there was

9:51

a lot of politics around just

9:53

where you place your eyes. You

9:56

were not allowed to

9:58

look you're in slavery in the eye. And

10:00

so a lot of

10:02

communication that was going on from

10:05

a hierarchical point of view was

10:07

nonverbal at that time because, you

10:10

know, speaking to

10:12

your enslaver was a dangerous thing

10:14

to do. Espousing your opinions was

10:16

a dangerous thing to do. And

10:19

so the disposition for survival

10:22

was one of silent

10:25

obedience, so to speak. And

10:28

so that's woven into what

10:31

black people were having to endure at

10:33

that time. But you combine that with

10:35

the fact that he is... One

10:38

of the reasons why he's so good at being

10:40

a deputy U.S. marshal is his ability to observe.

10:43

And he did speak a myriad of languages. You

10:45

know, I had to speak Greek and Choctaw in

10:47

the show. You had to learn that. Yeah,

10:51

yeah. And you

10:53

know, so speaking was something he was good

10:55

at, but he was even better at observation.

10:57

And that's what made him incredible at what

10:59

he did. There

11:02

is this overriding theme where Bass

11:04

Reeves is really asking himself, am

11:06

I an instrument for justice or

11:08

am I being used? And

11:12

that's an interesting question that never really

11:15

gets answered. I don't know if it

11:17

could really be answered. It's

11:19

also really powerful because as a black

11:21

person, anyone who has had been

11:24

in a position of power

11:27

has probably asked themselves

11:29

that question too. Right,

11:31

right. What about you? Well,

11:34

I think in the show, that's

11:36

one of the primary themes of

11:39

the show. And it's rooted in

11:41

the gray area that is the

11:43

notion of justice. How do we

11:45

talk about justice in America at

11:47

a time where there have been

11:49

centuries of injustice meted out towards

11:51

African Americans who were stolen from

11:53

their continent to build America? So

11:55

when you are a black person

11:58

who has been living... in what

12:00

can only be described as an unjust

12:02

world. And you are now

12:05

being invited into an infrastructure that is

12:07

saying that it has had a change

12:09

of heart, a change of mind. And

12:13

so therefore, you're now being invited into

12:15

a world where, and you can see,

12:17

that there are black people who

12:20

are going into politics, black people

12:22

who are going into industry and

12:24

entrepreneurship and law enforcement. So it

12:26

is suddenly a new world, but

12:28

it is someone who looks like

12:30

your enslaver, who is inviting you

12:32

to do that. That's a very

12:34

confusing thing. You are now arresting

12:37

people who are going to toss

12:39

racial epithets at you, saying you are

12:41

not the thing that your badge says

12:44

you are. That is something

12:46

I don't accept. And the reality

12:48

is all of those mistrusts

12:50

you feel about

12:53

this changed society soon

12:56

get answered with Jim Crow.

12:59

There's so many quiet moments. And as I

13:01

mentioned, you act so much with

13:03

your face and your body and the

13:05

action within scenes. But your character, there

13:08

are moments where we hear Bass

13:11

speak, and it's a very

13:13

distinct accent. And I wanna play a scene

13:15

between you as Bass Reeves and the local

13:17

judge who was appointed Reeves

13:20

to be a US Marshal. And in

13:22

this scene, the judge played

13:24

by Donald Sutherland and tells Reeves a story

13:26

from his childhood, how when he was a

13:28

boy, he showed his father

13:30

what he thought was gold, and his father

13:32

said, that's not gold, it's pyrite, it's fool's

13:34

gold. And so then he asked Bass a

13:37

man that he's always trusted, whether

13:39

he himself is gold or pyrite. Let's

13:42

listen. The

13:45

man whose name and brand

13:47

I carry, the

13:49

one who taught me to ride, to

13:51

shoot, was

13:54

William Reeves. Everyone

13:58

told me how fortunate I was. to

14:00

have his good favor. He got the

14:02

big man's interest, bass, mind him good,

14:04

bass. He

14:09

wasn't a cruel man, at least

14:11

not on the surface. But

14:13

then he gifted me to his son, George.

14:17

When that man's cruel came too much

14:20

to bear, I

14:22

didn't go treasure hunting, collecting

14:25

loose rocks, fools

14:27

gold. No,

14:30

sir. For

14:33

you, knowing who's who, a simple thing,

14:36

gold or pyrite, but

14:40

justice ain't nothing

14:43

more costly. That

14:47

was my guest today, David O'Yello-O,

14:49

starring as Bass Reeves in the

14:51

Paramount Plus series. David,

14:55

this accent is very

14:57

distinct. What did

14:59

you find out about how Black Americans

15:01

spoke during that particular time period in that

15:03

region? At that

15:05

time, Black people were so

15:07

much closer to their West African

15:10

roots than we are now. And

15:14

there is a music in the

15:17

way they spoke that I recognize

15:19

because I'm of Nigerian descent myself

15:21

and lived there for

15:23

a fair few years. And that was the accent

15:25

my parents had. And people

15:27

didn't move around as much back

15:30

then. So the accents

15:32

people had were more distinctive

15:35

and more traceable to West

15:37

Africa. And we found

15:39

this because we heard recordings that

15:41

were later than the 1860s, which

15:44

is when our show is set. You

15:46

can hear the sounds. And

15:49

it's extraordinary to me how akin

15:52

to the Yoruba

15:54

sounds that I love listening to.

15:57

They're sort of a melodic quality.

16:00

And so the combination of that, the

16:02

transcripts that we were looking at, the

16:04

fact that we cover 15 years

16:06

of his life, the fact that he lived

16:08

a very hard life, the failed farmer for

16:10

about 10 years, all that dust, all

16:12

that outdoors life, all that time

16:15

on a horse, people grew older

16:17

a lot quicker back then. And

16:19

a lot of the places that would manifest is in the

16:21

voice. What did you do to

16:23

get yourself there? Well, because it's more than an

16:25

accent is what you're telling me. Yes,

16:28

yes. Often, young

16:30

people who want to be actors ask

16:32

me what the

16:35

trajectory it is I

16:37

would recommend to them in terms of becoming

16:39

a good actor. I will always say it's

16:41

the theater. And

16:43

I... Your early career

16:45

was in the theater. It was in the theater.

16:47

And when you're doing plays, you

16:50

don't have the luxury of editing

16:52

and VFX and all the amazing

16:54

things that cinema and television gives

16:56

you as a tool, as an

16:59

actor, in order to convey a

17:01

character. Your body is

17:03

the tool, your voice, your

17:05

disposition. And you're having

17:07

to transmit that to sometimes hundreds of people,

17:10

sometimes thousands of people. And

17:12

the voice is a primary way you

17:14

are expressing who and what the character

17:16

is. And so I had several opportunities

17:18

at that early in my career. So

17:20

I know the power of

17:22

the placement of the voice, not

17:24

just the accent itself. And so

17:27

in order to convey a

17:30

weariness that is inevitable with

17:32

that life and with the culture

17:35

and the history and the politics

17:38

of that time, I am

17:40

an actor who aspires to use all of

17:43

him when it comes to a role. I

17:45

will look for the

17:47

costume to inform some of what

17:50

I bring to the role. I

17:52

remember playing Dr. King. You

17:54

know, I put on all this

17:56

weight and Dr. King had a

17:58

very specific way, his neck. sat

18:00

within his collars. So I asked

18:02

Ruth, our costume designer, to

18:05

make all of my collars about

18:07

half an inch smaller. So

18:09

it's a little tight. So it's a little tight.

18:11

And that in and of itself, that constriction then

18:14

did something to my body. It brought

18:16

a sort of a tenseness to everything

18:18

that I couldn't have done if I

18:20

was more comfortable in what I was

18:22

wearing. And that's the genius of Ruth

18:24

Carter. That was something that we arrived

18:26

at together. So there are

18:28

so many things that come to

18:30

bear as you are trying

18:32

to convey the truth of a character. The voice

18:35

is just another one of those tools. You

18:37

had to learn how to ride horses and shoot a gun. Yeah,

18:40

I did that for over a year.

18:43

Just outside LA here, I would

18:48

get on a horse with amazing

18:50

trainers and we would ride

18:52

in very tricky

18:55

terrain in

18:57

order for me to get to a

18:59

place of ease that when cameras are

19:01

rolling, when I had to gallop, when

19:03

I had to suddenly stop, when I'm

19:05

in all this undulating, inclement circumstances. I

19:09

remember seeing Kevin

19:11

Costner in Dances with

19:13

Wolves. And there's a scene

19:15

early on in the film where he

19:17

rides across a battlefield in a sort

19:19

of death-defying way and he

19:22

lets go of the reins. And he

19:24

is riding this horse without holding onto

19:26

the reins. He throws his arms to

19:28

the side, looks up to the

19:30

high heavens with his eyes closed and it

19:32

was clearly him. And I just thought, whoa.

19:36

You got to get to that level. You've got

19:38

to get to that level because that's the point

19:40

at which he buys the audience his trust in

19:42

the fact that he is that character. That is

19:45

not a stunt guy. You are

19:47

watching someone not unlike any of

19:49

Daniel Day Lewis's performances or you

19:51

watch Dendo Washington and

19:53

Malcolm X. You feel that an

19:55

actor has given themselves over to a

19:57

character and that allows you to

19:59

to relax and be completely tethered

20:01

to the truth of what that

20:04

actor is doing. Our guest today

20:06

is David Oyelowo, star and executive

20:08

producer of the Paramount Plus series

20:10

Law Men, Bass Reeves. We'll continue

20:12

our conversation after a short break.

20:15

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21:45

Hey there, Anne Marie Baldonado here

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with a preview of our latest

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Fresh Air Plus bonus episode. It's

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terribly romantic in a sleazy kind

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of a way. To me

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it was just another nightclub until of course the

21:59

patrons came in. And they had

22:01

no clothes on. Well, they had no, they had

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towels on. As Pride 2024

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join Fresh Air Plus for yourself

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at plus.nbr.org. The

22:19

show, Lawmen, Vass Reeves, this

22:22

show has been praised. There's

22:24

also been criticism that it's

22:27

not Western enough that

22:32

the narrative, the family narrative,

22:35

may take over more than the Western part

22:37

of it. Maybe people, when they saw that

22:39

this was coming out, thought, okay, I'm gonna

22:41

come and see what I've always seen. How

22:44

do you respond to that? It was absolutely

22:47

by design, and I love hearing

22:49

that because for me, when

22:52

I first sat down with Chad

22:54

Feehan, our creator and showrunner, I

22:57

wanted to make a Western for

22:59

people who don't love Westerns. And

23:02

Westerns, typically, the

23:04

tropes are revenge, the

23:07

tropes are a lone man who

23:09

has no ties to any family,

23:12

and the violence, often, in my

23:14

opinion, is mindless. This

23:16

man has a family. Love

23:19

is the driver for why

23:21

he consistently wants to get

23:23

back to his family. Revenge

23:26

is not the driver for why

23:28

he wants to be a purveyor

23:30

of justice. His faith in God

23:32

and the Bible is. And so,

23:34

there are so many things inherent

23:36

in the character that fly in

23:38

the face of the tropes of

23:41

the Western. But also, with

23:43

this being one of the rare

23:45

times where a show of this

23:47

nature is centering a black person,

23:49

centering a black family, I personally

23:52

was not interested in it being

23:54

what we have seen before. I

23:56

love shows and films that are

23:58

fresh and familiar. Give

24:01

me my Western in a fresh way. And

24:04

that is what we set out to do. You

24:07

mentioned that you're Nigerian. You grew up

24:09

in the UK and in Nigeria. You

24:12

came to this country, and

24:15

I wonder how your perception and

24:18

understanding of the black American has

24:20

changed or evolved since

24:22

you've been here and you've been taking

24:24

on these roles. Yeah,

24:26

it's been quite the ride and one that

24:28

I didn't seek out. But

24:31

yes, between films like Red

24:33

Tails playing Atusuke E. Airman or

24:36

The Butler playing the son of The

24:38

Butler as played by Forrest Whitaker or

24:40

playing a preacher in The Help. The

24:43

thing that I have come to learn and truly

24:45

appreciate, which I will fully

24:47

admit I didn't before, is just

24:50

how extraordinary black people in

24:53

America are. And

24:55

I mean that in terms of African

24:57

Americans. When you look at just

25:00

how much injustice, how

25:03

much challenge, how much pain,

25:05

how many lies have also

25:07

been told about the

25:09

reality of

25:14

who and what black people are

25:16

to this country. Black people built

25:18

this country. There is no America

25:21

without the stealing of all of

25:23

those black bodies to basically build

25:25

this nation. There just

25:28

isn't. And for

25:30

all of that injustice to be foisted upon

25:32

a people and then to still

25:36

be invested in building

25:39

the country, building

25:42

community, taking ownership

25:44

of being American

25:47

is truly extraordinary to me.

25:50

What were your perceptions when you were a

25:52

kid growing up of black people in America?

25:56

Because so many of the narratives

25:59

are negative. you just think,

26:01

well, black people in

26:03

America are inherently

26:05

upset with how

26:08

they've been treated, and

26:10

they are stuck in that place.

26:13

That's the perception you have growing

26:15

up in the UK. You

26:18

watch Do The Right Thing, and

26:20

I love that film, but there

26:22

is, you can feel that there

26:24

is a heat around

26:27

what it is, particularly

26:29

being an African-American man.

26:32

You have been objectified, you

26:34

have been consistently and

26:39

continually accused of things you didn't

26:41

do. You are

26:44

mistrusted, but

26:46

you are also exploited when

26:48

it comes to sport and

26:50

music and your body. And

26:53

there are so many

26:55

pervasive narratives, particularly around

26:58

black men, and when

27:00

you are imbibing culture from across the

27:03

pond and you're getting

27:05

these negative stereotypes shoved down your neck,

27:07

what you're not having as

27:09

much of a front row seat to is

27:12

just how much of

27:15

what is good about America

27:17

was built on the back of

27:19

black people. Just how much of

27:21

what America is able to call

27:24

itself is rooted in

27:26

a forgiveness and a

27:28

love, which you could argue isn't

27:30

warranted from black people. I've

27:33

always wondered about, it seems that

27:35

for the United States, our number

27:37

one export is like black entertainment

27:39

and culture too. It

27:42

drives and it informs so much. So when

27:44

you were a young person

27:46

in the UK and in Nigeria,

27:48

and so much of what you

27:50

were taking in was that.

27:54

Did you have an understanding or depth

27:56

of just how much contribution black people

27:59

paid? in that regard to the arts?

28:02

Because of how inherently,

28:06

and I genuinely mean

28:08

this, brilliant black people

28:10

are. And I say this

28:12

as someone who grew up in

28:14

an African country from the age of 6 to 13. And

28:17

the way Nigerians move through the

28:20

world is transcendent. I

28:23

did grow up listening to that

28:26

music and watching those films. Sidney

28:28

Poitier was my hero because he

28:30

was my mom's favorite actor. He

28:32

had a poise and a disposition

28:35

that was very akin

28:37

to what I saw in my uncles

28:39

and my own father, despite the challenges

28:41

that they might face. And of course,

28:44

yes, there's the music, there's the fashion,

28:46

there's the literature, there's all this amazing

28:49

stuff. But it is all being

28:51

pushed through a white

28:54

lens. It is all being

28:56

shown through

28:58

white distribution mechanisms. And some of

29:00

these films are being directed by

29:03

people who are not of the

29:05

demographic that are centered within the

29:07

show itself. So I

29:09

saw this very, very clearly

29:11

in my time in the

29:14

development phase of Selma,

29:17

for instance. And it was

29:19

illustrative of the point I'm trying to make, when

29:22

I first happened upon that script

29:24

in 2007, the director was

29:26

a white man. And the

29:29

film centered Lyndon Johnson, not Dr.

29:31

King. Lyndon Johnson was the

29:33

lead, and Dr. King was tangential. That

29:37

script then went to another white male

29:39

director. The narrative remained the same.

29:41

It then went to a black

29:44

director. It went to Spike Lee. I

29:46

wasn't part of the project

29:48

at that point, but I was by the time

29:50

it became Lee Daniels. And

29:54

suddenly, Dr. King was the center

29:57

of the narrative. But it wasn't till it

29:59

was. Ava DuVernay, who was directing

30:01

it, that the women of

30:04

the movement became centered in a

30:06

way that you could have actresses

30:08

like Oprah Winfrey and Lorraine Toussaint

30:10

and Carmen Ejogo and Tessa Thompson

30:13

and Nissi Nash in

30:15

prominent enough ways that you are getting not

30:17

just the man that is Dr. King, but

30:19

the movement and how it was driven not

30:21

just by other black men, but by black

30:23

women as well. Let's

30:26

take a short break. If you're just

30:28

joining us, my guest today is David

30:30

O'Yellowo, star and executive producer of the

30:32

Paramount Plus series Lawmen, Bass Reeves. We'll

30:35

continue our conversation after a short break.

30:37

This is Fresh Air. Rick

30:39

Woodfield is the oldest baseball field in

30:41

the U.S. It's also where comedian Roy

30:44

Wood Jr. spent a lot of time

30:46

growing up. Racism was around,

30:48

but this baseball field somehow was

30:50

a separate oasis from all of

30:52

that for blacks and white. Baseball,

30:55

Birmingham, and Race in America, on

30:57

the latest episode of The Sunday

31:00

Story from NPR's Up First podcast.

31:03

There's a lot to stay on top of

31:05

on any given day. You might have to

31:07

break things down into smaller pieces in order

31:09

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31:14

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31:16

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31:18

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31:20

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31:22

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31:24

day. Sign up for free at

31:26

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31:28

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31:30

NPR never puts a paywall in

31:33

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31:37

way so that you get all

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of it. Breaking news, pop culture,

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award-winning journalism, wherever you are. To

31:44

stay connected, head to npr.org. Your

31:50

mother had a prophecy when

31:52

you were a kid, when you were

31:54

born. She said that you would walk

31:57

amongst kings. Yeah. When

31:59

did you... first learn about that prophecy? When

32:03

I was very young, she told

32:05

it to me personally, it's a sort

32:07

of a statement that you don't forget

32:09

easily, but I was genuinely confused by

32:12

it because I didn't

32:14

entirely know what it

32:16

meant. I mean, you could watch films and

32:18

see the Knights of the Round Table or

32:20

whatever and think, oh, that's a world in

32:22

which kings were roaming the earth and you

32:24

could mingle with them.

32:26

But I didn't see anything growing

32:29

up on a council estate in

32:31

Islington that suggested I

32:33

would be anywhere near... That's

32:35

a working class. Yeah, it's

32:38

like growing up in the projects. And so

32:40

I loved

32:43

that my mum considered that as something

32:45

in my future, but I couldn't see

32:47

it for myself. As you got

32:49

older, how did you

32:51

interpret that? As you went through different stages in

32:53

life, that prophecy and what it meant for you,

32:55

how do you sit

32:58

with it today when you reflect on it? Well,

33:01

it's funny. One

33:04

of the reasons I'm an actor today is

33:06

because The Prince's Trust sponsored me to be

33:09

able to join a youth theatre, which is

33:11

where I actually met my wife, Jessica, when

33:13

we were teenagers. And that was the

33:16

now King Charles. It was The

33:18

Prince's Trust. And King Charles

33:20

is now a friend of

33:23

mine. Because I've been

33:25

an ambassador for his trust for

33:29

25 years now, my

33:33

seminal role in the theatre

33:35

was playing the King of England in

33:37

Henry the Six, parts one, two and three.

33:40

In a film called The United Kingdom, I

33:42

played the King of Botswana,

33:44

who was exiled because he married

33:46

a white lady. So,

33:49

you know, it's definitely been

33:51

a theme. I am of

33:53

royal descent. My father's dad

33:55

was the king of a

33:57

part of Nigeria called Awe.

34:00

people hear that and immediately think,

34:02

oh, wow. So you're this print

34:04

and all that. Trust me, it's

34:06

not all of the things

34:08

that you associate with being the King

34:11

of England, but that is also part

34:13

of my familial history

34:15

as well. So it has been a theme. And

34:18

my interpretation of that is that

34:22

it's probably why I'm drawn

34:24

to playing aspirational characters, characters

34:26

that for me personally as

34:28

a black person, make

34:31

me proud to be

34:33

black, make me proud of my

34:35

culture, my history, and

34:37

what we have contributed to the

34:39

world as a whole, which

34:42

again, I feel isn't platformed as much

34:44

as it should. You know something

34:46

interesting when I was reading

34:49

some old articles about you,

34:51

listening to some old interviews

34:53

with you. Everyone's

34:56

so fascinated by that history,

34:58

that royal lineage from your

35:00

Nigerian history. There's

35:03

so much myth-making around it. What

35:06

were the realities of you growing up? Because

35:08

you lived in Nigeria for a time, you

35:10

lived in the UK, but

35:13

you all were really middle-class

35:15

and in many instances working

35:17

class. Absolutely. Yeah,

35:19

when we first moved to Nigeria,

35:21

we lived on Oyelowo Street on

35:23

the Oyelowo compound, which is very

35:26

snazzy. That had to feel cool,

35:28

was it? Did it to you or did you take

35:31

it for granted? Well, I was very young,

35:33

I was six, seven years old, so it

35:35

was a bit confusing if I'm totally honest.

35:38

But my father was one

35:41

of six kids, and

35:44

he was the youngest boy. And

35:47

he really didn't want to be deemed

35:50

to be someone who was reliant

35:53

on his family name

35:55

or his brothers who were in

35:57

politics and doctors and

35:59

fairly... affluent, he wanted to

36:01

sort of do it his own way. And

36:04

so he kind of broke away,

36:06

not from the family, but from

36:08

anything that could be considered him

36:11

sponging of his own family.

36:14

And so we were actually quite poor growing

36:18

up. And my father had made the choice

36:20

that he wanted to go it alone.

36:24

And that was why

36:26

he moved to the UK in the first

36:28

place. That's why even when we were in

36:30

Nigeria, not long after we moved there, we

36:32

were no longer living on the Oyelowah compound.

36:35

We were living in a tiny apartment with

36:37

my dad working for the Nigerian Airways. What

36:39

do you think it was that he wanted

36:41

to make a name for himself or do it

36:43

himself? There is a pride and

36:46

a disposition that I

36:48

attribute to Nigerians in a

36:50

way that I probably

36:52

shouldn't generalize. But it's the

36:55

pride of being self-made. It's

36:58

the pride of being self-reliant. It's the

37:00

pride of standing

37:02

on your own two feet. And

37:05

my dad had that in spades. He is

37:07

where I learned my work ethic. He

37:10

is where I learned my love for family. He

37:13

was a doer, not a talker. And

37:16

he worked harder than anyone

37:18

I have ever seen, anywhere,

37:20

ever. And

37:23

it's why, again,

37:26

when young actors say to me, what

37:28

would be your advice as

37:32

to how to succeed? I would say, well, the thing

37:34

that has stood me in

37:36

good stead is when you're asleep,

37:38

I'm working. Something you mentioned

37:40

I've heard you talk about in growing

37:43

up in Nigeria

37:45

was the sense of self. You

37:49

didn't suffer from minority mentality. Is that

37:51

the term that you use? So

37:53

by the time you got to the UK, went back to

37:55

the UK, you had a

37:57

deep sense of self because you're just around

38:00

all people who look like you in Nigeria. It's

38:02

very similar to how I grew up in Detroit,

38:05

like everything was black, my church was black, my

38:07

school was black, my neighborhood was black, so my

38:09

sense of self was pretty strong by the time

38:11

I went onto the greater world. Have

38:13

you thought about that? How do you grapple

38:16

with that? Yeah, you

38:18

know, there are so many things

38:20

that are constructs that torpedo

38:23

our sense of self. If you're

38:25

constantly being told you're a minority,

38:27

if you have the notion that

38:29

you are a diversity

38:32

higher, if you are

38:35

constantly being reminded of

38:37

your race in

38:39

a negative way, these

38:42

are things that subconsciously work their

38:44

way into how you

38:46

think of yourself. If you are

38:48

watching films and television shows where

38:51

you are constantly the best friend,

38:54

the black best friend or

38:56

the magical Negro, as we

38:58

know that trope, or you're

39:00

just constantly tangential, superfluous or

39:03

peripheral to the narrative, you

39:05

are gathering data as to what your

39:07

skin plus the world or that culture

39:10

or community that you are within, how

39:13

it feels about you, where it

39:15

places you on the hierarchy of

39:17

things. Now, if you grew up

39:20

in a community like I did

39:22

in Lagos, Nigeria, where every image,

39:24

every bit of stimulus I am

39:26

receiving is telling me I am

39:28

central to the life

39:30

of that community, that is

39:32

also something that is your

39:34

internalizing and affects your

39:36

disposition as you go out into

39:39

the world. So the minority mentality

39:42

is something I was able to discern when

39:44

I moved back to the UK at

39:47

the age 13, being in Nigeria from six

39:49

to 13, and suddenly this

39:53

notion of race, race is a

39:56

construct, it's a construct to help

39:58

us rash the ground. rationalize

40:01

to be perfectly frank some of

40:03

the terrible things we have done

40:05

to each other through

40:07

history As

40:10

opposed to just feeling like a human being when I get

40:12

out of bed every morning I do my first thought is

40:14

not I'm a black man. You know

40:16

what I mean? I'm David. I'm a human being.

40:18

I love my wife. I love my kids Are

40:20

they okay? Let me go feed the dogs. Can

40:22

I hit the gym? You know that these are

40:24

the thoughts that but then very quickly as I

40:26

exit my door There is

40:29

stimulus hitting me that is deeming

40:31

me anomalous deeming me different deeming

40:33

me problematic at

40:35

times or deeming me angry

40:38

at the world or whatever it is

40:40

and Sometimes that becomes

40:42

a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes it's something you're

40:45

fighting against But both of those things

40:47

are negative and I

40:49

call it actually another phrase I use

40:51

is the Sydney Poitier syndrome when you

40:53

look at what he achieved in this

40:56

country at that time Something

40:58

that if you were a black actor today You

41:01

know winning the awards he did having the

41:03

acclaim He did working with the directors he

41:05

did being number one on the call sheet

41:08

at the time he was even today That's

41:10

a challenge. How did he achieve that? It's

41:12

because he grew up in the Caribbean where

41:15

again? He didn't have yeah, he didn't

41:17

have a minority mentality. So he was

41:19

walking into rooms Circumstances

41:22

and situations with a disposition that didn't

41:24

have him in a boxer stance the

41:26

whole time He had an ease to

41:28

the way he was confronting the world

41:30

because he didn't feel like he was

41:33

constantly at war with it David

41:35

O'Yellowell. Thank you so much for this conversation.

41:37

Thank you. My pleasure. This is fun That

41:41

was David O'Yellow. Oh star and

41:43

executive producer of the Paramount Plus

41:45

series lawmen Bass Reeves Coming

41:48

up critic at large John Powers reviews

41:50

the new movie green border. This is

41:52

fresh air With

41:54

more and more information coming at you

41:57

all day every day. It can be

41:59

hard to know where to focus the

42:01

news consider this newsletter from NPR can

42:03

be that focus. Every weekday afternoon, we

42:05

take one of the day's biggest stories

42:07

and break it down in a simple,

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42:23

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42:26

This is NPR. The

42:55

NPR Network, what you

42:57

hear changes everything. Learn

42:59

more at npr.org/network. Green

43:02

Border is the new movie by

43:05

the veteran director Agnieszka Holland. It

43:08

tells the story of a refugee family trying

43:10

to escape to Western Europe and of the

43:12

people who try to help and stop them.

43:15

The film, which opens this week, won the

43:17

special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival

43:20

and stirred controversy in Holland's native

43:22

Poland. Our critic at large,

43:24

John Power, says it's the strongest

43:26

movie he's seen all year. Some

43:29

topics are so distressing that it's easy to

43:31

turn away and just not think about

43:33

them. One is the

43:35

world's seemingly endless refugee crisis. But

43:38

when poor, often traumatized people cross

43:40

into your country by the thousands or

43:42

tens of thousands, averting your

43:44

eyes isn't enough. You

43:47

have to do something. The

43:49

complexity of doing anything lies at the

43:51

heart of Green Border, a

43:53

new movie that packs a real emotional wallop.

43:57

It's the crowning achievement of filmmaker Agnieszka

43:59

Holland. The 75-year-old Polish

44:01

émigré, who's both a long-varied

44:03

career telling political stories, about

44:06

everything from the Holocaust and Soviet tyranny,

44:08

to the drug war streets of Baltimore on

44:10

the wire. Holland

44:13

has always had a laser eye for

44:15

moral conflicts, and here, exploring the refugee

44:17

situation in Eastern Europe, she

44:20

shows how every choice exacts some sort of

44:22

price. We

44:24

start in October 2021, with

44:27

a Syrian family headed by a torture victim

44:29

named Bashir flying into Belarus,

44:32

where they expect to cross the greenly

44:34

forested border into Poland, and

44:36

then claim asylum in Sweden. But

44:39

once they slip through the razor wire into

44:41

Poland, we made it, they exalt. They

44:44

discover they've actually entered a nightmare from

44:46

which the supposedly enlightened EU won't rescue

44:48

them. Far

44:50

from offering safe passage, the Polish authorities

44:52

round them up and dump them back

44:55

into Thuggish Belarus, which then

44:57

rounds them up and dumps them back into the

44:59

Polish forest, over and over

45:01

in a Kafka-esque cycle complete with beatings and

45:03

robbery. Their story

45:05

is powerful enough to carry a whole film,

45:08

but Holland expands the canvas to include characters

45:10

on the front lines of dealing with refugees

45:12

from the Middle East and Africa. We

45:15

follow a rookie border guard, Jan, a nice guy

45:17

with a wife and baby on the way, who's

45:20

been trained to think he's protecting the

45:22

homeland from terrorists and sex offenders, who

45:24

are being funneled into Poland by Vladimir

45:26

Putin. We follow

45:28

a crew of activists who assist refugees

45:30

in the countryside, offering them food, water,

45:33

and medical attention. And

45:35

finally, we follow Yulia, a widowed

45:37

therapist whose surprise encounter with an

45:40

injured refugee starts her down a

45:42

heroically risky path. Along

45:44

the way, characters who we like die,

45:46

or do unlikable things, or in some

45:49

cases disappear into a patrol car and

45:51

never return. A few

45:53

almost randomly make it out of Poland. For

45:56

every generous soul like Leila, an Afghani

45:58

English teacher who shares what she has

46:00

with her fellow refugees, there

46:02

is a racist border guard who charges

46:04

desperately thirsty people 50 euros

46:06

for a bottle of water, and

46:08

then after taking their money, pours

46:11

it onto the ground before their eyes. Everyone

46:14

is constantly making hard choices. For

46:17

instance, the activists aid the refugees with

46:19

food and medicine, which is allowed, but

46:21

they refuse to help them elude the border guards

46:24

even when they can. Such

46:26

intervention would get the group banned from

46:28

aiding any further refugees, and could get

46:30

them imprisoned for years. Each

46:33

member of the group has a personal line that defines

46:35

what they are willing to do or not do, and

46:38

the lines change. Although

46:40

the film has a political kick, one

46:42

of Holland's virtues is her sense of

46:44

reality, her way of reminding

46:46

us that even in extreme circumstances, ordinary

46:48

life goes on. Refugee

46:51

kids bicker like all other kids, even when the

46:53

family is on the run. Julia

46:55

may risk her career to help a wounded

46:57

man, but she still needs to make that

47:00

daily call to her desperately ill mother. And

47:03

after Jan and the other border guards quit for

47:05

the day, they drink hard to forget what they've

47:07

been doing. When

47:10

Green Border premiered at festivals last fall,

47:12

Holland was attacked by the Polish government,

47:15

then run by the nativist, ultra-conservative Law

47:17

and Justice Party, which tended

47:19

to treat any criticism of its policies

47:21

as slander, if not treason. But

47:24

their words weren't about Dachau Holland, who

47:27

cut her teeth on communism, emigrated west

47:29

to make films more freely, and knows

47:31

her way around bullying governments. Indeed,

47:34

she ends her movie with a crushing kicker set

47:36

at the Ukrainian border in 2022, an

47:40

open-armed greeting that reveals the Polish

47:42

government's selective treatment of refugees. You

47:46

can feel the moral outrage pulsing beneath

47:48

Green Border. Yet Holland

47:50

is too shrewd a filmmaker to become preachy

47:52

or sentimental. This is

47:55

what's going on in your world, the film tells us. What

47:57

do you want to do about it? John

48:00

Powers reviewed the new movie, Green Border.

48:04

On tomorrow's show, Dionne von

48:06

Furstenberg and filmmaker Charmaine Obey

48:09

Chinoy. Chinoy directed

48:11

a new Hulu documentary about Dionne

48:13

von Furstenberg's life, how she

48:15

became a fashion designer and created the

48:18

wrap dress, and the influence of her

48:20

mother, who survived the Holocaust. The

48:22

documentary is called, Dionne von

48:25

Furstenberg, Woman in Charge. I

48:27

hope you can join us. To

48:45

keep up with what's on the show and get highlights

48:47

of our interviews, follow us on

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Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh

48:52

Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our

48:54

technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

48:57

Our interviews and reviews are

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49:56

Hey, this is Elsa Chang from

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