The actors talk about applause, auditions, how they fell in love with the theatre – and the extraordinary high of delivering the perfect line
David Oyelowo and Alfred Molina have been friends since they appeared together on screen in As You Like It directed by Kenneth Branagh in 2006. Molina now has a role in Oyelowo’s directorial debut, The Water Man, for Netflix. They swap stories about their stints with the Royal Shakespeare Company, explain what they have missed during theatres’ closure and, to start, remember when they first fell in love with the stage.
David Oyelowo: As a kid on a council estate, Shakespeare felt like something for other people. Then I saw Robert Lepage’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the National Theatre when I was a teenager. Timothy Spall was Bottom, a Cirque du Soleil contortionist was Puck. We were in the nosebleed seats but I understood everything about the play. I thought: this is what I want to do. It was a fizzing feeling.
