David Oyelowo Talks New Movie Newborn, Gives The Rocketeer 2 Update | Interview
ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese spoke with David Oyelowo about his new thriller movie Newborn. Oyelowo discussed how he portrayed the lasting effects of solitary confinement in the film, his young costar Aiiden Stoxx, and also gave an update on The Rocketeer. The film will be released theatrically on April 10, 2026.
“Newborn follows Chris Newborn (Oyelowo) who after serving seven years in solitary confinement seeks to rebuild his life and reconnect with his family only to find that freedom has become a terrifying psychological battleground,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: David, congrats on Newborn. I really enjoyed the film. How did you approach showing this psychological toll that these years of solitary confinement would take? Because at first it’s shown as this like silent heavy burden, and we see it expand.
David Oyelowo: Well, I knew that that side of it, which was so outside of my own experience, I needed help with. The fact that he’s a father, the fact that he’s a husband, the fact that he’s a brother to someone in the film. I could relate to all of those things ’cause I am all of those things in my own life. But the effects of solitary confinement, the reality of solitary confinement, thankfully for me, are very outside of my experience.
So, I did a lot of reading, but a lot of interviewing, and one guy in particular, Richard Rosario, who had been wrongly imprisoned for 20 years, seven of which were in social confinement, was my primary source of information on the effects of this very debilitating experience. Between several other accounts I had read, there’s a book called Hell Is a Very Small Place, which has accounts of people who’ve dealt with solitary, a book called Writing My Wrongs as well, and then another one called Solitary by Albert Woodfox. These are all books that really take you into the psychology of that. But I wanted to speak to someone who had a lived experience, and Richard Rosario was the source for that.
I wanted to ask you about working with Aiden Stoxx, who plays your nonverbal son in the film. Because that’s a tough act for any adult actor to have a performance be purely physical and still be emotive, but he does so well. What stood out about working with him because he’s quite the young talent.
I’m so glad you highlighted that, because I think what he does in the film might be the most impressive thing that happens in the film from a performance standpoint. As you say, he’s nonverbal, and to me that is quintessential cinema acting. The fact that it is ultimately a visual medium. Yes, we use words, we use music, we use all these other ways to tell stories. But at the end of the day, what you do with movies is hold a mirror up to humanity and hopefully see yourself reflected in that mirror. His eyes alone, I mean, have you ever seen eyes more expressive than that kid’s? He’s truly wonderful in the film, and so much of my character is his journey is about trying to reconnect with his son, trying to help his son heal from the trauma that caused him to be nonverbal. So, having a scene partner who was operating at that level was really a joy.
One of the scenes that really stuck out to me in Newborn was after you get out of prison, and you’re trying to be intimate with your wife, and you just start breaking down. We see all this emotion and this kind of inability to connect. I thought that scene was really powerful. Can you speak to filming that scene?
David Oyelowo: Yeah. It’s so outside of my experience, incarceration generally, but solitary confinement specifically, and I was so interested to hear from Richard Rosario and read accounts from other people that, unlike what your perception might be, which is that, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t slept with anyone for years now. The first thing I’m gonna want to do is get home and get my wife in bed,” or whatever. It’s actually the opposite, you know?
It’s that level of intimacy and connection, having been denied it for so long, is incredibly intimidating. There are parts of your body and your psyche that shut down. This is how dehumanizing solitary confinement can be. So getting to play the reality of that, knowing that it was rooted in specificity, because I’d interviewed a guy who absolutely validated the reality of that, was surprising for me when I read it in the script. Surprising when it was validated by speaking to Richard, but then to play it, it felt so right, because ultimately, if you extricate someone from humanity for seven years, where they are 23 hours a day in a 10×8 cell on their own, of course, reconnecting with human beings is gonna be one of the hardest things to do.
The actor Paul Walter Hauser just left a review of this film on his Letterboxd and said that you’re “one of the best to ever do it.” What’s your reaction when one of your talented peers gives you praise and respect like that?
Wow. Well, I didn’t know that. I love Paul, and I love his work, and yeah, coming from someone like him, who I really, genuinely respect, that’s as good as it gets. I’m still slightly recovering from you telling me that. But yeah, that’s what you hope, and I know what I’m like when I see a performance that really spoke to me. Because, for us as actors, we become adept at seeing how an actor may have technically arrived at a performance. But I love it when I just watch something, and I just go, “Whoa, that was just the truth,” and that’s certainly what I aspire to do. So, that’s a very lovely thing to hear.
You spoke about rooting this performance in reality, and as the film goes on, your character is struggling more and more with his grasp on reality. How was it finding that right balance? Because obviously you don’t want it to be cartoonish, but you do want it to be visibly different from what we see early on. So, how is it kind of charting that out?
Well, that’s the point at which you’ve gotta trust your filmmaker. Any actor, no matter how truthful of a performance you are giving, that performance is depending on the composition of the shot, the editing, or the music. It’s a very vulnerable thing, especially with a role like this, where you have to go to dark corners, and you have big emotions, small emotions, unreadable emotions, messy emotions.
Thankfully, Nate Parker, who’s my best friend and one of my prime collaborators in terms of what I do. I met him 17 years ago on a film called Red Tails, and we have a streaming platform together called Mansa. We have so much in common. Doing this film, I just had to trust him with making sure, as you say, none of the bigger emotions, none of the paranoia, none of the aspects of the character that are seemingly or could be outlandish were gonna come across that way. Thankfully, for me anyway, having watched the film, I think [Nate] got the balance just right.
You made your directorial debut a few years ago with The Water Man. How has that impacted you as an actor?
David Oyelowo: Oh, it has a huge effect. You really appreciate what it is a director is having to, uh, deal with, you know, the sheer amount of questions on any given day. I mean, you are the, uh, custodian of the story, uh, in its totality as as the director. So I, I really came to appreciate that role even more. But it also really showed me how much of a group effort. I mean, I know it’s a group effort, but just how much of a group effort making a movie is you, you literally are only as strong as your weakest link. And, you know, strong films tend to be, because across the board you had, uh, a group of people who were all on the same page about the film that they were looking to make. And so, you know, it, it made me appreciate how necessary that is. You’re not just casting your cast, but you’re casting your crew. And we had a, a truly amazing bunch on, on this film, uh, going in. It certainly created an environment where I was able to make probably braver choices than I otherwise would’ve done.
I’m a fan of The Rocketeer. I know you had mentioned that the sequel had kind of stalled. With Disney undergoing a leadership change, do you still have any hope of The Rocketeer sequel happening?
I have deep hopes. I think that film, and as we were looking to tell it, still has enormous potency. I’m not a big superhero guy in terms as an actor. I’ve had those opportunities come my way, and they just haven’t spoken to me, if I’m totally honest. But there’s something about the groundedness of an ex-Tuskegee airman happening to have that jet pack come into his world. Again, the specificity, of course, he’s the kind of person who can wield that and fight for justice, having been subjected to so much injustice. I just think it’s a cool idea, and I hope someone at Disney is hearing this and agrees with me.
Thanks to David Oyelowo for taking the time to talk about Newborn.
Source: Comingsoon.net