David Oyelowo Will Join Daniel Craig in Othello Off-Broadway

It's official, 007 is heading off-Broadway! David Oyelowo will play the title role opposite the previously rumored and now confirmed Daniel Craig as Iago in Othello. Tony winner Sam Gold will direct the Shakespeare classic, which is set to begin off-Broadway performances at New York Theatre Workshop in the fall of 2016. Additional casting and dates will be announced later.

Oyelowo's film credits include Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, A Most Violent Year, Default, The Butler, Lincoln, The Middle of Nowhere, Jack Reacher, The Paperboy, Complicit, Red Tails, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Help, 96 Minutes, The Last King of Scotland, Who Do You Love, A Sound of Thunder, Derailed, Captive and Five Nights in Maine. He received an Emmy nod for HBO’s Nightingale and has also been seen on the small screen in Spooks/MI:5, Small Island, Born Equal, A Raisin in the Sun, As You Like It, Five Days and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Stage work includes The Suppliants, the title role in the RSC’s Henry VI, The God Botherers and Prometheus Bound.

Shakespeare’s Othello tackles the universal and timeless themes of jealousy, betrayal, racism and the lure of power. The classic was most notably fairly recently seen off-Broadway in 2009 with John Ortiz in the title role and the late screen and stage legend Philip Seymour Hoffman as Iago, directed by Peter Sellars.