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David and Jessica Oyelowo wear many hats — spouses, parents, actors, producers, directors, writers — and more often than not, they are filling these roles in tandem.But above all, the Oyelowos are storytellers.
And through their production company, Yoruba Saxon, they hope to use the stories they tell to generate empathy in the world, placing marginalized people at the epicenter of the universes they create.“David coined this phrase, ‘normalizing the marginalized,’” Jessica explains when we chat on a video call in April, sitting next to David in their Southern California home.“Making people the protagonist of their own stories where they’re fully human, fully realized and beautiful and complicated and difficult and wonderful, because those were not the kinds of roles that were available to us.”The couple, who met as teenagers while performing in youth theater in England and got married in their early 20s, found it hard to break into the TV industry there.“I’m going to be careful with what I say, but it was really hard for us, particularly for David, to be able to get the things we wanted made,” says Jessica.David interjects with a more blunt assessment: “I’ll be less careful than Jess and say that we like our racism and misogyny cold and in our face.
That is certainly one of the beauties of living in America.It’s very obvious.
The U.K.is world-class at couching those elements in nicety, the class system …”“Colonization.
‘We’re coming to help you,’” adds Jess.Upon moving to the U.S.in 2007, they found that roles for Black men in film and TV often were limited to drug dealers and criminals, slaves and servants.
As for women, Jessica remembers a character description calling for a woman with “perky t— and a flat stomach.”“I actually took that audition just so I could tell the director how disgusting it was,” says Jessica.“Then he wanted to give me the job! I was like, ‘No, are you crazy?’”Its fate hitch...