David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo

David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo was born on April 1, 1976.

Oyelowo was born to Nigerian parents in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England.His mother is Igbo, also from Southern Nigeria, and his father, Stephen, is from Oyo State in Western Nigeria.He was raised as a Baptist.When he was six years old, his family relocated to Lagos,Nigeria, where his father worked for the national airline and his mother for a railroad firm. Prior to this, he had been raised on an estate in Tooting Bec, South London. Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington were idols to Oyelowo as a young man.

Oyelowo went at Lagos State Model College, Meiran, a residential institution with "military-style" uniforms.Oyelowo's family relocated to London when he was 14 years old.

With the Royal Shakespeare Company, he made his stage debut in 1999, playing roles in Ben Jonson's Volpone, Oroonoko (whose title character he also played in the BBC radio adaptation), and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1999), alongside Guy Henry, Frances de la Tour, and Alan Bates.

Oyelowo made history by becoming the first black actor to play an English king in a major Shakespeare production. Although this casting decision was initially criticized by some in the media, Oyelowo's performance received high praise from critics and went on to win the 2001 Ian Charleson Award for best performance by an actor under 30 in a classical play.

The role of MI5 officer Danny Hunter that Oyelowo played on the British drama series Spooks (known in North America as MI-5) from 2002 to 2004 is what made him most famous. Prior to that, he had roles in Brothers and Sisters (1998), Maisie Raine (1998), and Tomorrow La Scala (2002, 2002).

In Grace Unshackled: The Olaudah Equiano Story, a radio play based on Equiano's book The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he played Olaudah Equiano. On April 8, 2007, this was initially aired on BBC 7, with his wife Jessica Oyelowo playing Mrs. Equiano.

He received nominations for a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmys. For his contributions to drama, he was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2016.

He has four children with actress Jessica Oyelowo, whom he married after they met at LAMDA. Before making the move to Los Angeles, California, they resided in Brighton