Yes you read that right! James Bond is Nigerian! Let me explain … David Oyelowo, 39, will portray 007 and other characters in a recording of Trigger Mortis, a new Bond novel by Anthony Horowitz, according to The Guardian.
However, his performance will be heard rather than seen, in an audiobook.
The announcement on Thursday follows long-standing rumours that Idris Elba is in line to replace Daniel Craig when the latter’s run playing James Bond on the big screen comes to an end, potentially in two movies’ time.
According to the report, this feat is coming after Oyelowo, 39, appeared as Martin Luther King in the film, Selma.
“I was asked specifically by the [original author, Ian] Fleming estate, which is really special,” David Oyelowo was quoted as saying.
“I am officially the only person on planet Earth who can legitimately say ‘I am the new James Bond’… even saying that name is the cinematic equivalent of doing the ‘to be or not to be’ speech.”
“Because films and TV affect culture, a black Bond would be a cultural event, a statement, beyond just entertainment,” he added.
Oyelowo, an actor, producer, director, and writer was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, to Nigerian parents of Yoruba ethnicity. His mother worked for British Rail while his father, Stephen, worked for then state-owned British Airways. He then studied Theatre Studies at City and Islington College, where his teacher suggested that he become an actor.
Oyelowo enrolled for a year in an art foundation course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He finished his three-year training in 1998.
Oyelowo has played supporting roles in the films Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Middle of Nowhere (2012), Lincoln (2012), and garnered praise for portraying Louis Gaines in The Butler (2013). On television, he played MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the British series Spooks (2002–04), and in 2014, provides the voice of Imperial Security Bureau agent Kallus on the animated series Star Wars Rebels. In 2014, Oyelowo played Martin Luther King, Jr. in the biographical drama film Selma, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor (Drama).
In 2014, he starred in the HBO movie, Nightingale, for which he won a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Movie/Miniseries and was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie.
This is great news and we’re so excited and proud of the young actor. Keep shining David Oyelowo!