Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.

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.

Because I was aspirational, I did my work, I was respectful to my teachers, I experienced a lot of bullying from the black kids. My friends were largely white or Asian.

I like to think of myself as a physical actor.

Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.

That's what's so satisfying about acting. You can come as prepared as you like, but there's no accounting for what's going to come at you from the other actor. That's part of the joy and the play of it. If you don't have that it's a different kind of performance.

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