‘Selma’ star David Oyelowo talks about the long path to becoming Martin Luther King Jr.

The audience’s ability to believe you as Dr. King must have weighed on you. What beyond the physical aspects of your transformation do you think work?

I always felt very strongly that if we (used prosthetics) we would be shortchanging exactly what you’re talking about there. The only way this works is if somehow I find myself in a situation whereby I can spiritually align myself to who this man was in this specific moment. And yes, I gained 30 pounds; yes, I shaved my hairline back; yes, I did everything I could to look like him. But more importantly was, how can we get to the point where it feels like what this must’ve been like to be him? The speeches are only ten to 15, maybe 20 percent of our film. The rest of it are sides of Dr. King you haven’t seen before. The short answer is that it was a gamble. I’ve never done it before as an actor, I may never get the opportunity to do it again, but there was a moment, and I haven’t told many people this, but there was a moment where I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and I looked in the mirror, and I couldn’t see myself. I kept looking, and I couldn’t see myself, and it was the weirdest thing. All that was looking back at me was this man I was portraying. I just feel like those seven years, combined with who he was, combined with the spirit in which we made this film, allowed for a moment in time where I think we were able to tell the truth on film in a way that I could only have dreamt of. I know now what it feels like to be taken up by something and not really know where it’s going to go, or how it’s going to come across. But I know I went through something that was not of me and so, hopefully that’s what people see when they see the film, and they see me as Dr. King.

Your casting in the movie was a process that probably used up a lot of reserves of patience. What did you do during that first moment when you hoped you would get this role and the moment you knew for certain that you would?

The Selma script had been, I believe, on the 2006 Blacklist; it was a very highly rated script. I didn’t get to read it until July of 2007, about two months after having moved from the UK to L.A. with my family to pursue a Hollywood career. When I read it I just had this very visceral reaction. The only way I can describe it is that it was deeply spiritual. I really did feel God tell me, “You are going to play this role.” That doesn’t happen to me every day. To be perfectly honest, it was a little bit confusing, because here I am, a British actor only recently moved to America, and I’m feeling very strongly that I’m going to play the most significant African-American figure of the 20^th century. So, that was the beginning of it. At the time, my wife helped me put four scenes on tape. It came back that (the original director Stephen Frears) didn’t see me as Dr. King, which was a bit of a head-scratcher. I really felt—was convinced—that this would be mine. And then (the project) fell apart with that director. Paul Haggis came on, as did Spike Lee, and then by 2010 it had gone to Lee Daniels. And to be honest, I kind of let it go. Long story short, Lee Daniels ended up casting me in that role after a round of auditions. I did The Paperboy and The Butler with Lee. Eventually, the project culminated in this weird, full circle of the initial director not wanting me, to me being able to suggest Ava DuVernay to direct it. The process was fraught with many frustrating moments, some of which included gaining 10 to 15 pounds of weight, then having been told “No”—just all sorts of very frustrating episodes into today.