David Oyelowo reveals his most surprising moment as ‘Role Play’ premieres
Oyelowo talks to theGrio about his new film and the family experience that left him feeling “shocked.”
In David Oyelowo’s new film, his character is faced with a surprising revelation and the actor can definitely relate.
Oyelowo opened up about his most surprising moment while chatting with theGrio’s Mariel Turner about his action comedy movie “Role Play,” which is now available to stream on Prime Video. In the film, Oyelowo stars as Dave Brackett, a loving husband who discovers his wife of seven years, Emma (Kaley Cuoco), is leading a secret life as an international assassin. Together, they must fight to protect the family they love. Oyelowo may not be faced with the same kind of secrets in real life, but his most shocking experience does have to do with family.
“Well, you know, I’m very happily married to my wife, Jessica. She has not subjected me, thankfully, to a surprise or a secret of that size,” Oyelowo said with a laugh.
“Every time one of my children were born, I was shocked by the effect it had on me physiologically, emotionally, spiritually. Four times, and each time,” he said he experienced that surprise. “It’s like an earthquake of emotion. That’s one of the things that really made me fall in love with this film. I think the amount of love that is possible within a family, to me, just feels like something worth fighting for. I’ve lived a life and have a marriage and a family whereby I have been consistently surprised that I even have the capacity for that amount of love. So that’s the thing that has shocked me, so to speak.”
Oyelowo added that his counterpart in the film, Cuoco, “gave me a big surprise while we were shooting.” The actress discovered she was pregnant with her first child with boyfriend Tom Pelphrey and the experience helped her learn that women really can “do it all,” she said.
“I didn’t know till halfway into the shoot that she was pregnant. That was a good surprise. But it did explain a lot of the very odd behavior that she exhibited in the build-up to that moment,” Oyelowo said with a laugh.
“I had to tell him because I didn’t want him to leave this film being like, ‘Nobody work with Kaley Cuoco,’” Cuoco jokingly told theGrio. “It’s a very strange experience. I shot it while I was pregnant, and I thought it made me feel that we (women) just do it all. You can really just do it all. And also, it gave me a moment of depending on some other people to help me out. If I was kind of emotionally spent, it was OK to lean on others. Whereas normally, I’m like Miss Independent; do it myself. I felt a sense of community once people started (to know) in my inner circle. I just feel like you can do anything at any point, especially women being so badass.”
As for Cuoco’s most surprising moment? “How good ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ tastes like butter,” to which Oyelowo burst into laughter.
“That’s a good one! This is why we have chemistry,” he added. “You’re the yin to my yang.”
“Role Play” is available to stream now on Prime Video.
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