One of the things the BBC does better than anyone is period drama.

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.

There are many forms of love as there is moments in time, and you are capable of feeling them all at different stages of your life.

Very few people in the USA realize that a nuclear war was waged with nature in the southwest by their own military.

They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.

The one who pursues revenge should dig two graves.

If we desire peace, we must prepare for peace. The most important thing is to build a culture of peace.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.

Racism built me into a person that was set up to be self-destructive.

I have to go out there and show scouts and GMs and coaches just what I can do: Run as fast as I can and try to show them I have great hands and good technique where I can be on the line blocking.

I think I understand the line between my job and the director's. I have no interest in directing. Not my movie, not your movie, nobody's movie.

The most powerful lessons occur where studies intersect with real life.