What's really important is the people, first of all. I like working with people who are kind, above all else. I don't really want to work with someone who will manipulate me. The idea that you must treat actors a certain way in order to get a performance out of them kind of disturbs me, and it's disregarding what we do. Our job is to do our job.
When you label someone 'up and coming' or 'the new breakout,' there's this kind of expectation. And I think, like I said before, it's very hard to live up to that expectation when you really don't have that much power as an actor - in terms of your career path and the timing.
I didn't have that many black people in my life, so I had to sort of search them out. And I didn't grow up in America, but I identified as much with their writing about the black experience as I did with their writing about the human experience.
I'm always very careful to say I'm Irish-Ethiopian because I feel Ethiopian and I look Ethiopian and I am Ethiopian. But there are 81 languages in Ethiopia, and I don't know any of them.
I don't like hobbies. I read and travel and see my friends before they disown me.
I have not been aggressive in my pursuit of being a star. I've never had a plan. Maybe I need to be more aggressive, because it's quite tough!
Women always have to have this soft, maternal, sort of - I don't know - moral center.
Violence in film and television is an ongoing conversation, and I like eavesdropping on it, but I'm never sure what my opinion is. I like watching creative violence, but I don't know.
I don't really know how strong someone is if they're compelled to a life of violence. Is that strong? No. That's damaged.
My favorite film is 'All About Eve'.
I use the term 'spine' for people when I think that they may seem on the surface sort of reticent, shy, self-deprecating, shying away from the spotlight. Quiet.
I was moved by the 'Lovings' story because of my own background as a mixed-race person.
I had a very peripatetic childhood, so I bounced around. Lived in Ethiopia until I was, like, three or four and then lived between Ireland and London.
I don't think I have ever thought of myself as a movie star. I think when I was about seven, I thought it must be lovely to have an Oscar. But the more involved you are in this business, the more that pretence disappears, and you really get to see what you love about it, and what I love is working.
I trained, went to college, trained, and got a job. Then got another job. When I wasn't working I worked at a bar, then got another job.
I think if you don't risk something in art, it's not really important.
I don't like the term 'colour-blind' - because I don't want people to be blind to my colour.
I've met loads of black and brown and various people who are well into comics.
When I was a kid in Ireland, there were not very many black people. I was very much like the strange brown thing, intriguing and cute. I didn't experience racism there. The first time I did was in London. It was that moment that you realize you're black. A kind of lifting of the veil.
What I have wanted to do is take roles that are unexpected for people who look like me. Roles that the establishment would say, 'Oh, she couldn't possibly be that.'
