'Top Boy,' for some people, was very controversial because it seemed to be portraying black people in a certain light that they thought to be stereotypical. However, what I would say is that the writer went and lived in Hackney in East London for a long time and did his research really well.
I was very surprised when I first started spending time in America. The culture shock was something I wasn't prepared for. I had a lot of work to do to try to begin to understand this enormous and complex country that I thought would be an easy process.
I feel like there is a real lack of empathy - not just in American society, it's definitely happening in Britain as well - and it's heartbreaking that people can see something and not feel it.
There's so much to consume that it's very easy to read a headline in the news outlets that you subscribe to that you maybe support and go 'This is how I feel.'
I'm very instinctive when I choose my roles, and usually, the number one thing has to be the director.
I can't imagine how hard it must be to invest in a community... when you don't feel heard and when you don't feel seen.
I think we've all done things that are a detriment to ourselves, and we've all made good choices that have brought good things for us.
With so much racial tension and issues between the police and black and minority ethnic groups, there needs to be more in-depth conversations if we're going to fix anything.
I can't think of an experience I've had with police that I felt was based on race, which is one difference between England and the U.S.
I think people have always had ambiguous relationships toward the police because of the position in society they occupy. But that anxiety and that animosity isn't as strong in other places as it is in the U.S., partially because the police are armed here.
Scripts specify 'minority' when it doesn't seem necessary. Given this is a traditionally liberal and progressive industry, it's surprisingly backwards.
We can all be self-destructive. I make terrible choices all the time. It's uncomfortable to admit that you did a thing that was selfish and that you knew would hurt someone else.
Between Trump's election and Brexit, there were all sorts of opinions coming out of the woodwork that I thought had died out a long time ago. I was like, 'What's the point?' All we do is bad things. The history of humanity is the history of people exploiting each other.
Sometimes it's great when, you know, you're sitting down to watch a straightforward story, and you know how it's going to go, and you know how it's going to end. That's a fairy tale.
We all are just people, and something happens, and we make a decision as a result when something happens, and it could be a poor choice or a good choice or anywhere in between. But we make that decision in the moment, and we live with the consequences.
It's not so important to me where I work. A lot of good writers and directors and actors come out of Hollywood, so obviously it would be great to work there, but there's some great stuff coming out of Britain, so I'm going to see what comes from all angles.
Sadly, I think that 'Children of Men' has only become an increasingly relevant and realistic portrait of where we are in the world.
You look around, and you think, 'Given the chance, if we can get away with it, people are going to be nasty to each other. They're going to pull up the draw bridge; they're going to draw up the ladder and try to live in this little bubble without giving anything to anyone else - without even receiving anything from anyone else.'
If you are watching a fairy tale, that's why you go to fairy tales: you want these uncomplicated stories and uncomplicated characters. But if it's meant to be real life, you want there to be some reflection of your experience and have something you can hook into.
After I finished university and started going to auditions again, and I also did a bunch of other jobs. I worked in the insurance industry, the digital media industry; I worked in a financial services company for three years.
