DOUBLE LIFE OF AN AFRICAN PRINCE; David Oyelowo, a Nigerian prince who stars in BBC1's Spooks, talks about his amazing rise to fame.

Byline: Rachel Murphy

As intrepid MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the hit drama Spooks, David Oyelowo is used to leading an intriguing double life. But even that doesn't compare to his own - because he was born into a Nigerian tribal royal family.

"It's quite surreal, but technically I'm a prince," says David, 27, who was born in Oxford and spent his early years in a modest two-bedroom flat in South London. "My grandfather was king of part of a state in Western Nigeria. My dad had often boasted about being royalty but I hadn't believed him, even though he has the word `BALE' carved into his tummy, which means king."

David was six when his parents took him and his two younger brothers back to their royal roots.

"When we arrived in Nigeria, sure enough, we had escort cars that took us to the family compound of three enormous houses on Oyelowo Street," he says. "It was very impressive but I soon discovered that being royalty in Nigeria is not like being a Windsor in England. There are loads of royal families all over Nigeria, and even though we were well known we weren't fantastically rich."

His parents moved back to London when David was 14 because of political unrest in Nigeria. He went to two North London comprehensives and his mum and dad now run a newsagents on the Holloway Road.

"It was another culture shock to say the least," says David. "I didn't fit in with most of the other black kids at school. They called me coconut - white on the inside and black on the outside - simply because I had lots of white friends and wanted to work hard and get on."

David kept his head down and achieved his ambition. After studying A- level drama he won a scholarship to the prestigious LAMDA drama school in London.

At just 24, he became the first black actor to play an English king in a Royal Shakespeare Company production. As Henry VI, he won the Ian Charleson Award for Best Newcomer and was described as a genius by the director Michael Boyd.

After the first run of Spooks, which recently won a Bafta for best drama series, David went to Prague to make a new pounds 50m movie with Ben Kingsley called The Sound Of Thunder.

"I couldn't have prayed for the career I've had so far," he says. "Playing Henry VI has to be the highlight - it just blew my dad away, which was fantastic. He'd experienced a lot of racism here in the 1960s and he felt witness to a great change in his lifetime."

David's private life has been blessed, too. Five years ago he married Jessica, 25, a beautiful actress who is currently working on the movie Churchill: The Hollywood Years with Christian Slater.

The couple first met at a drama group in London when she was just 16 and he was 18. Jess had a boyfriend, but David waited patiently for two- and-a-half-years until they split up. They got engaged when he was 21, married the following year and now live in a seafront home in Brighton with their 18-month-old son, Asha.

As well as sharing a passion for acting, David and Jess are both born- again Christians, and neither of them believe in sex before marriage. At college, girls took bets to see who could break David's resolve, but no one succeeded.

"It seemed to be an aphrodisiac," he chuckles. "It was quite animal at times and I can't say I didn't enjoy the attention. I can understand Danny's roving eye for the ladies in Spooks. I was like that, but thankfully I married the most wonderful woman in the world and I don't need to do that now.

"I don't mind making my beliefs about sex before marriage known, because it might give teenagers another viewpoint. Sex outside love can be very dangerous. I didn't want to sleep with lots of girls as it seemed to me it would affect my ability to fully commit to one person for the rest of my life, which is absolutely what I want to do."

David's principles could even have implications for Danny. In the new series of Spooks, he is set to fall for the charms of trainee Sam Buxton, played by Shauna Macdonald, while still fancying his colleague Zoe, played by Keeley Hawes.

He has become close to both Keeley and Matthew MacFadyen, who caused a storm last year when Keeley left her husband of just a few months to be with Matthew after meeting him on the set of Spooks.

"Matthew and Keeley have become two of my best friends in the world," he says. "The love that was already between us grew stronger because we had to protect each other over that time.

"I'm lucky because life has been pretty wonderful to me," he concludes. "I love that saying: `Live each day as if it were your last' and I try to do that. It helps to remind you that, whatever is happening to you, life is a blessing."

l Spooks, Monday, BBC1, 9pm.

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ONE WOMAN MAN: David with his actress wife Jess on their wedding day in 1998