I hope my kids can experience the seasons and a climate that's sustainable. The idea that things are going to be so very different for them is slightly scary.
As an ambassador for the aid agency Cafod and the Anthony Nolan Trust, I need to be sure that my public support for those charities is a help for their work, not a hindrance.
Support for charities takes many forms. Some people give their money, some their spare time. I give my name and my voice. We give what we can to make a difference to the people and issues that matter to us. But what's most important, especially for celebrities, is giving our genuine commitment.
Back in 2005, the Anthony Nolan Trust could have asked me just to speak out about the lack of ethnic minority donors on the bone marrow register, but that would have meant nothing if I wasn't prepared to join up myself.
When I first played Othello, a reviewer absolutely slaughtered me.
I watched the night unfold from beginning to end on my own here in my flat in Budapest where I've been working for the last six months, and when it was announced that Barack Obama was indeed president-elect, I wept.
My black hero is and always will be Martin Luther King, not just because of the strength of his oratory but because his vision was very much the reality that I'd come to take for granted.
Growing up, I really looked up to the classic Hollywood actors like Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Falk. I love character actors - I've never wanted to be the leading guy.
I'd love to talk with Martin Luther King, just to hear his voice up close and be with someone who had such faith. He had such power.
We all have insecurities, but some of us are better at covering them up.
I'm the only member of my family who dared to move away from Birmingham - my brothers and sister are still here, along with my mom.
I loathe the word 'celebrity,' and I hope I'm not a diva. Whenever I see diva-ish behaviour, I just leave the room; I find it appalling. You should always try to be civil to people.
I love New York. New York is busy. It's dirty. It's smelly. I'm a real urban animal: I love cities. I like being in the middle of it all.
If you don't register to vote, politicians don't really care about you: politicians aren't really caring about what you have to say, what you have to do, anything.
After 'Homeland,' I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I've done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.
We have a generation of black actors playing leading roles on film and TV - Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor - which is great and is breaking the mould.
It's been interesting seeing how vulnerable Obama is: not the secure president I thought he was or the strong leader that many people hoped he would be. He's a conciliator. But I've been listening to the Republican primary debates, and they're a bunch of lunatics. Just crazy.
Giving kids the chance to see live theatre should not just be free, it should be compulsory.
I'm very fortunate. I loved school and, when I went there, race, gangs and violence were not issues. There was a feeling, gone now, that you had to be presentable. If you hadn't combed your hair, older black ladies - complete strangers - would come up to you in the street and pull out a comb and straighten your tie.
I was in a number of school plays, one in particular, when I was 13 or 14, entitled 'Illusions.' It was put together by one of the teachers, and was about famous historical figures. I had to do the Martin Luther King 'I have a dream' speech, and some black women in the audience were clapping and crying and whooping.
