How Spooks star stumbled into limelight

But not David Oyelowo. He had notched up both achievements by the time he was 18.

And it was not so much a passion for theatre that shaped his career, as a teenage crush.

David says: "I fancied a girl at church and she invited me on what I thought was a date. It turned out to be a theatre group that was low on boys."

So besotted was he that he kept attending and eventually found himself part of a production at the Cottesloe Theatre, part of the National.

Luckily for him, he had no idea he was treading the boards on hallowed thespian ground.

Hove-based David, who stars as spy Danny Hunter in Bafta award-winning TV series Spooks, was born in Oxford and soon moved to London.

But when he was six, his family moved back to Nigeria. They returned to England when he was 14 and David had vague ambitions to study law.

He says: "Drama and acting are not high on the agenda in Nigeria and certainly not for Nigerian parents.

"My father had three boys and wanted a doctor, a lawyer and an engineer.

"Having not been brought up in that kind of environment and culture, acting wasn't something I aspired to and I didn't know the significance of the National, which probably helped me."

As if making your debut on the South Bank was not enough, David then found himself in a production of the Threepenny Opera.

It caught the eye of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who whisked it to Broadway.

However, since his early break, David has earned his crust.

Still only 27, he has won a stack of awards and nominations, including the Ian Charleson award for best newcomer in a classic play 2001.

This was a role to die for - the first black actor to play an English king with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

David says: "My Dad was very anti me being an actor, mostly because of the level of insecurity in the profession.

"But there were two turning points - winning a scholarship to LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) and then when I played Henry VI.

"When my Dad came here in the Sixties, he suffered a lot of racism.

"So to see a black man, let alone his son, playing the King of England at the RSC was a huge moment for him.

"He sat through all 12 hours in one day."

As a result of his high-profile RSC role, David was approached by the BBC for Spooks.

David says: "I had been worried about "classical actor" or "RSC actor" being attached to my name so the offer from Spooks allowed me to cross over into TV and to play a spy. What else does a boy want?"

The series attracted a huge audience of ten million and a good deal of controversy for its graphic violence, particularly a scene in which an MI5 trainee played by Lisa Faulkner is captured and murdered.

The BBC was flooded with complaints after viewers saw the character's hand being plunged into a deep-fat fryer and her head being forced towards the boiling fat before the camera cut away.

David says: "I had no idea it would be controversial when I took the role."

Excesses of sex and violence are an issue for David.

As a born-again Christian, he has strongly-held views about what he will and won't do on and off screen.

"If there are gratuitous sex scenes, I won't go near it," he says.

"I won't do anything that seems to make dark things like drugs worth doing. I have turned down roles because of it."

He and his wife Jess, an actress he met at the National Youth Music Theatre, have set strict ground rules.

He says: "We have made a pact we won't do anything we would be embarrassed to show our children."

The couple, who have been married for five years, also have strict rules for their relationship.

He says: "We are not allowed to be apart for more than 14 days, which once resulted in her having to fly out to Michigan for a day.

"Acting can take you every which where so you have to work extra hard.

"The priority is God, family and work later."

Jess and David have a two-year-old son Asher.

As well as devoting time to him, Jess is carving out her own career.

She has just finished making a film with Christian Slater called Churchill: The Hollywood Years, a comedy in which she plays Princess Margaret.

The couple moved to Sussex almost four years ago after deciding it was time to get out of London.

David says: "Jess had been working with Joe McGann and he recommended Brighton.

"We came down on the spur of the moment and, walking down Queen's Road towards the sea, it was a done deal."

The couple bought a flat in Waterloo Street, Hove, and have since moved up the road.

David says: "The city is small enough not to feel overwhelmed, the shops are good and the sea is priceless.

"It is our sanctuary."

Several times during our conversation David uses the phrase "blessed".

He feels lucky to have been given a gift and wants to help others develop theirs.

To that end, he, Jess, Israel Aduramo and other Brighton-based actors are putting together a series of workshops at the Dome to help 17 to 25-year-olds develop their skills.

The classes cover everything from audition techniques to improvisation and singing and begin early next year.

David hopes Brighton will one day, like Manchester and Sheffield, have its own youth theatre company.

In the meantime, he is appearing in The God Botherers at the Bush Theatre in London and enjoying his time off beside the seaside.

For a career that started by accident, it has worked out very nicely.

He says: "I'm doing what I set out to do and that was to mix it. I think that is the key to a long career."

But did he ever get the girl who started it all? Alas no, although he did go out with her older sister.

But more importantly, she led him to two of the great loves of his life: His wife and his work.