David Oyelowo expects to share “lots of backstage banter” about James Bond with Daniel Craig when the pair co-star in Othello in New York.
The British stars are due to start rehearsals for the off-Broadway Shakespeare production next week.
James Bond actor Craig will play Iago with Oyelowo in the title role.
Previews for the sold-out play, directed by Sam Gold, begin at New York Theater Workshop on 22 November.
Over the weekend Craig added to intense speculation about his future as 007 whenhe described Bond as “the best job in the world”.
Asked this week whether he would be discussing Bond with his co-star, Oyelowo said: “There will be lots of backstage banter on that. I’ll see how much I get paid to break the story! Who knows? But I think we’ll be concentrating on Shakespeare.”
Oyelowo told the BBC he had not been on stage for about 10 years and was “really looking forward to it”.
“It’s always nerve-wracking being on stage – that’s partly why you do it,” he said.
“I am always looking for opportunities to scare myself, to challenge myself – that’s the way you become better as an actor. So this is another opportunity to do that.”
He said that preparations for Othello had been “challenging” because he had been busy promoting two films – A United Kingdom and Queen of Katwe – at the London Film Festival.
“I’ve had to focus on that but as of next week I’ll be in a rehearsal room and I will shut the world out and we’ll go for it,” he said.
Oyelowo began his stage career in 1999 with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was the first black actor to play an English king in a major Shakespeare production in the RSC’s 2001 staging of Henry VI.
He has also starred in BBC spy drama Spooks and played Martin Luther King in 2014 film Selma.
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Source: BBC