I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.

I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.

One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.

You can’t have people curating culture in this way when we need to see things in order to reform from them.

If you merely focus on what we already know, then it's not revelatory. You may as well just go and watch a documentary or a few videos on Youtube, and you're good.

I don't have a tailor, but I do love clothes.

Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice.

Find the audience, be excellent, and you will be fine.

I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in the USA is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally.

We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.

Considering that I'm British and I talk the way I do, I love it when a director takes a chance on me.

If you wouldn't get up early for it, you shouldn't stay up late to do it.

When I go on holiday, I wear wedges. They accentuate your leg, honey, and you have to look good on the beach.

I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow, for weariness.

After enlightenment your body changes tremendously; its very molecular structure changes just because the kundalini is always streaming through you.

I've done literally 100, 150 different characters. Some of them have only appeared for a line or three. But the point is, every sound I can make has been harvested.

Poetry implies the whole truth. Philosophy expresses a particle of it.

The harder I worked, the luckier I got.

There's always down time when you're an actor, especially a character actor.

I'm 37, I'm pretty fit and feel I have another eight years left - which means there's 32 Majors still to go at.

We study there a lot because... what other choice does society give us, right? It's Starbucks or death, sometimes.