In an interview with One54 Africa, Nigerian-British actor David Oyelowo shared his thoughts on Druski’s skit lampooning Black British actors portraying American characters.
“This narrative around the silos that we inhabit as Black people, these Black British actors coming to take our roles, how African Americans feel like that… In the UK, a lot of the kids who bullied me were West Indian kids, so there was a West Indian, West African thing,” the 50-year-old actor said at one point in the interview. “Everything, in my opinion, that has kept Black people from the ascent that we are worthy has been this… Ultimately, for me, we all want the same thing. We want to be front and center of our own lives, afforded the opportunity to scale, and not to fail.”
He suggested that sentiments pitting different Black diasporas against each other only holds people back, creating resentment among people who should be supporting each other.
“If we link arms, like Jewish people do, like Chinese people do… If we do that, rather than fixating on the fact that, yeah, we have a smaller piece of the pie… When a Black Brit gets that role, what we’re talking about is not acting, we’re talking about scarcity,” he said. “We’re talking about the fact that there’s not much pie, so when someone gets it, it’s like, ‘You’re taking a piece that makes me feel like I can’t access that piece.’”
He said that you don’t see a similar thing with white British actors taking on American roles, because there are considerably more roles afforded to white actors, eventually giving his take on the Druski skit.
“My thing is, I have adopted the stance of, I have to let my work do the talking,” he said. “I think it’s funny, that skit, do I think it’s helpful? I don’t think it’s helpful. … We are way better and way more powerful together than we are apart. I truly think so much of that mindset is born out of insecurity.”
Oyelowo added that he believes that you only see this type of criticism against Black British actors when a project is successful, garnering box office success and positive reviews or award season buzz.
Druski’s skit was an instant hit when it debuted online last month. The comedian stars as the fictional British actor named Sampson DuBois in the skit, starting with him playing an enslaved Black man in the United States in a film called Release the Shackles. In a faux interview with Extra, DuBois speaks about his portrayal of the slave, calling it “cheeky” and “a little bit out of my comfort zone.”
The video did ruffle some feathers, however, with actor Damson Idris responding in the comment section with, “You ain’t shit” alongside several laughing emojis. Black British actors taking on American roles, such as Oyelowo portraying Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma or Daniel Kaluuya as the lead in Get Out, have long been a subject of conversation among Black Americans.
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