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MR. CAPEHART: Good afternoon, and welcome to the “Capehart” podcast on Washington Post Live. I am Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Bass Reeves was the first Black U.S.--Black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi in the 1800s. Today he is the subject of "Lawmen: Bass Reeves," the most watched series premiere on Paramount+ in 2023. The star of the series was just nominated today for a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a television movie or limited series, had also been nominated best actor in a limited series at the Golden Globes, and he is the main driver for getting this project on the air.

And you see him right there. He joins us now. David Oyelowo, welcome to "Capehart" on Washington Post Live.

MR. OYELOWO: Thanks for having me. Thank you.

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MR. CAPEHART: And congratulations on yet another nomination. I read that it took eight years to bring "Lawmen: Bass Reeves" together, to get it on screen. Why were you so passionate about sharing his story?

MR. OYELOWO: Because I was a kid who had loved westerns when I was of that age, and I had run around playing cowboys as a kid. And later in life, I became aware of some of the problematic representations when it came to cowboys and Indians, which is the nature of the game that we were actually playing as kids, and I slightly fell out of love with Westerns, if I'm totally honest, the vilification of Indians in the midst of those movies and in playing that game as a kid. And then in 2014, I was presented with the proposition of playing Bass Reeves and was just completely blown away by the fact that as a fan of the genre, as someone who clearly was looking for a representation of himself within this genre when I was younger, someone like Bass Reeves existed. I didn't know about him. There had been no film about him. There was just nothing commensurate with what I was reading of the achievements he had at that time and within a genre that is so beloved, and so that's where the obsession to right that wrong began.

MR. CAPEHART: And in my reading, he was brought to your attention in 2014, and you also had a very--another interesting comment. You said, "If he was White, there would be monuments. There would be multiple movies. There would be graphic novels. Everyone would be dressed up as him for Halloween." Talk more about why you don't think someone who clearly fits in the western genre what was celebrated in movies and what you tried to emulate as a kid never reached that height, that level.

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MR. OYELOWO: Well, you know, I think it's pretty obvious. The only thing distinguishing him from Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid was the color of his skin, and I think by now we are--especially in the world we live in today, we are very cognizant. We're very aware of the power of history, how it's told, how it's taught, how it's shown, how it's seen, because it is a reflection not only of who we were but who we valued and who we value.

And it's about power. If you have the representation of that Black man on that white horse, as I insisted, we must have in all the marketing, because that was the image I wanted to gift my six-year-old self, if we can agree that there is something potent about that imagery, something powerful about that imagery, then we also have to accept that there is a reason why it is kept from us to the degree that it had been in relation to someone like Bass Reeves and several other stories of this nature when it comes to these transcendent individuals who very much had a hand in building not only this country but the civilization we now live in.

MR. CAPEHART: Well, let's talk more about Bass Reeves, the man. He was known to be a highly skilled marksman who arrested more than 3,000 outlaws. The show is full of gunslinging action, but you also capture Bass's moral conflict, whether he is a lawman or an outlaw. Talk to me about his internal struggles and why it was important to show them.

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MR. OYELOWO: Well, if you think about just how Jekyll and Hyde your mind must be steeped into when you are someone who is enslaved for all of your life, your ancestors have been enslaved, you have dealt with brutality, marginalization, and the kind of undervaluing and undermining that is reserved for farm animals, as a person, and then the Civil War comes along, Black people are declared free from slavery, and within not too long after that, you are empowered to not only be a lawman but to bring to justice people, the likes of whom still think of you as chattel, people who still want to go back to the way slavery was and how it treated people.

So you have, as you see in our show, as played by Shea Whigham, beautifully by Shea Whigham, Bass Reeves' enslaver, it's representative of a certain demographic that is synonymous with brutality.

Then not long after being freed, Bass Reeves is confronted by a character as played by Donald Sutherland, another white man in a position of power who is empowering him to go and be a purveyor of justice. What does justice mean in America at that time when it was the law, it was permissible to treat human beings the way they were treated during slavery, and now the same system is saying to a Black man, go and be an enforcer of the law as we see it? That's very confusing, because what does that law look like? I have been on the wrong side of the unfairness of these laws, and now I am supposed to be a purveyor of justice.

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So these gray areas are what I was very interested in exploring. Thankfully, Chad Feehan, our showrunner, agreed with that notion, and to see it through the eyes of this man who's also just doing one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable and just trying to get back to his family every time he's out there, that's a character worth playing. That's a terrain worth exploring.

MR. CAPEHART: After escaping slavery, Bass returns to rescue his wife, Jennie. We have a clip, and I want to talk about it on the other side.

[Video plays]

MR. CAPEHART: Okay. So, David, we've got to talk about something I did not know when I saw--when I watched that scene last week. The actress playing Ms. Rachel in that scene, who plays the wife of Bass's former master, is your actual wife, your wife, Jessica. What was it like for both of you to take these roles, and what conversations did you have about the dynamic between these two characters in the time in which they existed?

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MR. OYELOWO: Yeah. One of the weirdest scenes I've ever had to perform in my life. That is, indeed, my wife, Jessica, my wife of 25 years. We have both produced the show and themes within the show. The nature of it is something very near and dear to us when it comes to the kind of things we want to make at our company here at Yoruba Saxon.

But yeah, it was super weird, not only in the macro but in the micro, on the day not really feeling comfortable being in each other's company. This is my best friend in the world. This is the person who knows me and I know the best more than anyone, and it became--what became incredibly present, potent, and real was how crazy racism is, because 150 years from where we are now, going back in history, that would be the dynamic between someone like me and someone like her in that confined environment.

It is probably the most fearful you see Bass Reeves in the entire show--

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MR. CAPEHART: Yeah.

MR. OYELOWO: --because we know the legacy of the claim of rape. We know the legacy of the claim--or the mindset and the objectification and the sexualization of the Black male body and how threatened white men, white society felt about that, certainly then and even now. And so to play that felt very necessary but also very weird, and I was also filled with relief that in 2023 when we were shooting that and now in 2024, I can be married to my wife and be in that proximity with my wife, even in Texas or Arkansas where these--where these events played out, without feeling--I mean, Bass couldn't look her in the eye. That was--he regressed right back to enslavement in that moment, because to look someone in the eye in and of itself was dangerous at that time, so very weird.

Our kids still haven't seen that scene, with good reason, because I think it would just be too weird for them. But yeah, she has cried off playing any role of that nature again going forward, and it cost her quite a bit actually.

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MR. CAPEHART: Oh, wow. Could you talk more about that? Because I did--that was one of the more--one of the most powerful scenes in the series. I mean, not only do you not look her in the eye, but what sort of caught my attention or took my breath away was just you could feel the tension in that scene. You not only look away, but you take a step back. I mean, the fear, like, you bring us right there in that scene. So it's great to hear from you how it felt, and you used the word "weird" many times. What does Jessica say?

MR. OYELOWO: Yeah. I mean, it escalates, because by the end of the show, she is someone who is so steeped in this supremacist mindset, that despite all of the achievements of the Reeves family, later in the show, she still thinks that it is a generosity and a gift to them for them to return to servitude to the Reeves family. So it hints at what actually did happen in this country, the reasons why Jim Crow happened, the reasons why sharecropping became so pervasive. There was this deep desire by these people who felt that they had been hard done by in the wake of slavery ending to wind things back. So she ends up saying unconscionable things, doing unconscionable things, but the reality is, as producers of this show, as people who wanted to tell this show, we know that it's actually an act of generosity to not only show the light but the real darkness of this time. And in many ways, it takes someone who recognizes, like Shea Whigham as well who plays George Reeves, Jessica's wife--Jessica's husband--sorry--in the show. They both did a very brave thing because they played despicable characters who do despicable things, and they played it to the hilt. And that's the only way. The light is defined in many ways by how dark things get, and so I'm very grateful to them both for doing that.

MR. CAPEHART: Now, you mentioned, a moment ago, Yoruba Saxon, and that is the name of the production company you and your wife, Jessica, have. First, explain the origin of the company's name, and second, talk about its mission in terms of storytelling.

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MR. OYELOWO: Yeah. So I'm of the Yoruba Tribe in Nigeria. My wife, as you just saw, is Anglo-Saxon, and so that's where Yoruba Saxon comes from. And so our union is something that is very, very meaningful to us, obviously, as a married couple, but also the bringing of people together is something that we--very focused on in life and in our company. And one of our mottos at Yoruba Saxon is the normalization of the marginalized, normalize the marginalized, and in order to do that, you have to show people who normally, when it comes to television and film, are on the periphery, are on the fringes, and center them in a way that feels relatable to everyone, so that you can break down prejudice.

We are a couple who--depending on where we are on the planet, we face prejudice. We push back to us being an interracial couple. It's something we celebrate in our marriage and our kids and our work, and as reflected in our work and our company is the celebration of us being more alike than we are different in terms of humanity. And that's a big tenet of the company.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, David, I have a question from Kerri in Massachusetts, and Kerry asks, "As the backlash against racial equity grows in strength in the arena of politics, commerce, and education, do you see a weakening of commitment in the entertainment and media industries in either their enthusiasm for featuring stories that tell unrepresented histories or their hiring, casting, or general operations? Will Hollywood back away from DEI either in production or operations?"

MR. OYELOWO: It's a phenomenal question, and the short answer is I do feel a regression. I feel a regression from the moment that--the cultural reckoning that was the moment after George Floyd's murder. There were many policies, many promises made within the entertainment industry and beyond. Some of them were kept for a time, and some of them weren't kept at all, and a lot of them are regressing. I think there is some notion that the further in the rear view that moment in time becomes, the less culpable we are as a society and certainly within my industry to adhere to the things we recognized as inequities, because we had this moment during covid where we went "No, no, no. We've been telling you for ages that we are being murdered like this literally and economically and politically and in terms of our history daily," and I think because it was covid, people had just enough space, because they were benched, so to speak, to take in that information. And therefore, there were, like I say, policies and promises enacted that I do feel are feeling less potent. I do question whether more shows like "Bass Reeves" would be green lit now further away from that moment.

And I see parallels with the Reconstruction era within which our show is set. That was also a time where policies and promises were made in the wake of the Civil War, and there was this 12-to-13-year period called "Reconstruction." That was then followed by Jim Crow, which also was a time of winding things back in the hope of going back to the way things were in order for those who were in the positions of power, those who felt more comfortable being supreme to reenter that place indisputably.

Equity is something whereby we're all sharing. Unfortunately, humanity seems intent on being the apex predator, and I do think that is something that is encroaching, without a doubt.

MR. CAPEHART: Mm-hmm. Let me get you to talk about something you said to Entertainment Weekly regarding the process of getting "Lawmen: Bass Reeves" on screen. You said, and I quote, "The question is, is there any audience for a Black historical protagonist? I don't know how many times we have to prove as people of color that we are the global majority and people will embrace it, but it's still a thing."

You are also the cofounder of the streaming service, Mansa. Is the reason why you cofounded Mansa is part of a way of dispelling this notion that there's no audience for Black-led stories?

MR. OYELOWO: Well, Mansa exists partly because streaming has come along and democratized the conversation and the audience, and it proves through data that we have been being lied to for decades, probably over a century now, if you think about the creation of the moving image.

For a long time, you had gatekeepers, curators of culture, primarily White men who were dictating what it is globally we get to see, certainly in America, Western Europe, and that is a good portion of what the global audience is imbibing. And they are pushing these things. They're green lighting these things that they value through their filter of what has value, of what the audience wants to see, and it is very much a reflection of them. And streaming has come along and shown that foreign language series and films are outperforming other content that they would traditionally value, and so at the end of the day, Hollywood is driven by money. And that data, it's also probably one of the reasons why they hide the data as well, because it revealed that we've been--

[Laughter]

MR. OYELOWO: --we've been being lied to for a long, but the cat is out of the bag. And so you now have the possibility to have a streaming platform like Mansa that is Black culture for a global audience, and it will get funded because you now have proof points that there is a global majority that is very engaged with this content and wants to see more of it.

MR. CAPEHART: Well, that gets to--you may have already answered this question, which came in from Michele from New Jersey, who asked, "In developing Mansa, do you foresee this streaming aggregate as a place to distribute films you wish to make that don't fly financially or otherwise in typical Hollywood circles?"

MR. OYELOWO: 100 percent because, as Black people, what we have always had is excellence. We have always had creativity. We have always actually been the drivers of culture, but generally speaking, we don't own the pipes through which our culture is distributed. We don't have the distribution mechanisms. We don't own newspapers. We don't own studios. We don't own distribution platforms. And so we are always taking what we make, and it's having to be pushed through the filter and the prejudice and the value system of people who don't necessarily look like us. And no one is going to treat your kid like you will. No one is going to treat your home like you will. And so, therefore, when it's yours, you are allowed to disseminate what you value.

And so the idea with Mansa is, absolutely, we're starting with taking a lot of undervalued content, aggregating it, curating it, and giving it to an audience who is imbibing it like drink to the thirsty. And then as we grow, the idea is to continue to super-serve that audience with the things that traditionally get either marginalized or exoticized. So you will get one film a year that is the film. It's the film that is celebrated by the Oscars. It's celebrated, and then there is a massive iceberg underneath it of things that are just as valuable. But we've also been told this lie of there can only be one. There's Sidney Poitier. There's Barack Obama. There's Denzel. Actually, there is an aggregation of excellence that is to be enjoyed, and for me, I want to take the "me" out of it and really celebrate the "we." And that's what Mansa is also an opportunity for.

MR. CAPEHART: You know where there's also an aggregation of excellence, David? On your T-shirt.

MR. OYELOWO: Aha, yes.

MR. CAPEHART: Julie, Kasi, Gina, and Ava.

MR. OYELOWO: Yeah.

MR. CAPEHART: All Black women directors, if I'm looking at that right.

MR. OYELOWO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Julie Dash, Kasi Lemmons, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ava DuVernay. Yeah, some of my favorites.

MR. CAPEHART: I'm just going to tell the control room, we're going to go a little over because I have to get in these two questions before we run out of time, and we have less than five minutes.

You've played many notable figures: Muddy Waters, Martin Luther King, Seretse Khama. What draws you to play what you've called "inspirational figures who exemplify excellence"?

MR. OYELOWO: Because I just think we're transcendent as Black people. I've lived on the African continent for a number of years. I've lived in Europe for a number of years. I've now lived in America for 17 years, and still, I don't see enough of a representation of just how much we've contributed, just how amazing we are, just how amazing the African continent is, just how much we have shaped the world we live in. And so, you know, if I were a White actor, I'd probably just play whatever I want to with great directors and just have as eclectic a career as I'd like to have and anyone should have. But for me, I have tasked myself with creating opportunities and creating opportunities for myself as a producer, which parlays into me being an actor, of seeing the things that I want to be, I want my kids to be, I want our communities to see. And thankfully, I've been given enough advocacy, enough notoriety, enough blessing to be able to do that, and so it's just very important to me. There are things that exist now that didn't exist when I was younger, and I've been blessed enough to have a hand in creating some of those things.

I also didn't understand why 50 years after Dr. King had been assassinated, we still haven't had a film centering him. I didn't understand why, considering I'm from a royal family in Nigeria. I'd never seen that on screen. So that's why I wanted to tell the story of Seretse Khama, who was a prince, who went on to be the first democratically elected leader of Botswana. I'd never seen a young chess-playing prodigy out of a slum in Uganda. I made that film as an ode to my daughter, showing her what she can be as a little Black girl. These are images, as I say, I didn't see growing up, and Bass Reeves is one of those as well.

MR. CAPEHART: Yeah. I'm going to ask these two questions, because we're going way over you.

MR. OYELOWO: [Laughs]

MR. CAPEHART: You have just shown--I've mentioned the three super serious, heavy characters you have played in film, but now you've got two comedies that are set to premiere this weekend, "The Book of Clarence," where you play John the Baptist, and "Role Play," where you star as a husband who's unaware that his wife is an assassin.

[Laughter]

MR. CAPEHART: What caught your eye about these comedic roles? Was this a way to add to the eclecticism of your career or to stretch your legs?

MR. OYELOWO: Both. You know, people see me more as a serious actor, partly because of some of these projects we've talked about. There's a real goofy side of me as well. You want to keep bringing the changes. You want to keep showing different sides of yourself, but contextualizing the Black experience is the entirety of the Black experience. Do you know what I mean? It's not just the historical, more heavy stuff. We are also husbands. We are also--we were there in biblical times, whether people care to admit it or not, and so these are--yes, they're more fun, but they are also opportunities just to show the multifaceted nature of us and in some ways of me as well.

MR. CAPEHART: The name of the Paramount+ series is "Lawmen: Bass Reeves." I remember when I saw that and I thought, why does it say "Lawmen" when it's just Bass Reeves? So you've been very intentional about talking about--pointing out the lawmen. So who are some of the other lawmen who we're going to see as a part of this series?

MR. OYELOWO: Well, we're going to see--you know, it's funny. When you're making a show, of course, you cannot predict whether it's going to work or not. You said earlier--and you are right in saying--it's the most watched show on Paramount+ globally last year. That is what success looks like. We've had these nominations as well. So for me, the hope, the idea would be to showcase more folks at this time who were on and are on the fringes of our knowledge, historically, when it comes to the West.

I don't need to see Wyatt Earp. I don't need to see Billy the Kid. I know what that is. I know who that is. I've seen multiple variations of that story being told. And so it's not up to me necessarily, but, you know, I am a producer on "Lawmen," the anthology, going forward, and that's certainly where I will be lending my voice is that we--the audience is rewarding us for showing them what they haven't seen within a beloved genre. I'm a big believer in giving us the fresh within the familiar, and so to do more of that would be hopefully the goal.

MR. CAPEHART: Actor and producer, multiple award-nominated actor--

[Laughter]

MR. CAPEHART: --David Oyelowo, star of "Lawmen: Bass Reeves" on Paramount+, thank you so much for coming to "Capehart" on Washington Post Live.

MR. OYELOWO: Thank you. This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

MR. CAPEHART: And thank you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up, go to WashingtonPostLive.com to sign up, look and sign up and register.

Once again, I'm Jonathan Capehart, associate editor at The Washington Post. Thanks for watching "Capehart" on Washington Post Live.

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