I think that having a black president in this country has been a seismic shift, in terms of what has been going on racially in America. I think that America is now engaging with how we have come to this point.

People have compact to go beyond our own culture and upbringing to a degree that I think we don't acknowledge enough really.

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.

When I am playing a role far away from me with an accent that is not mine I always employ a dialect coach. I am almost always playing someone that has an accent that is not mine.

I know that there is still a lot of bitterness and anger, and arguably justifiably so, when you think about how brutal slavery was and what its brutal legacy still is.

When you reflect upon the significance of Dr. King to this nation, it's criminal that he hasn't had a feature film that was centered around him until now. That, in and of itself, was emotional. But when you're doing scenes on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, with people still living in Selma and now in their 60s and 70s who had actually marched, who were there that original Bloody Sunday, that's humbling... that's deeply moving. You're no longer acting at that stage, you're just reacting, because it takes the filmmaking process to another dimension.

I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.