I was offered and accepted a part in 'A Few Best Men,' and then the Australian actor's union argued that there were too many British actors. And the director decided to lose me.

What I want to do is make things that I think people want to watch. I'm a film fan, so I think I'm in touch with other film fans and that they might want to watch stuff. The other reason I really don't care is because no matter what you do in life, no matter what you wear, or what you say, people are going to like it or they're not. And that is all. Everything, down to the socks I chose today - people are going to like them or they're not and there's nothing you can do about that.

I think it's important that we have a new batch of British film-makers that aren't doing the same old stuff. And that includes me.

The BFI recently did a study of the British films that have the most people of color in them in the last 10 years, and in the top 10, three of the films were my films. I've always been a glass-is-half-full person. I've always gone, "If people aren't going to do it, I'm going to do it".

I asked my media teacher, "You can make films out of sequence?" and he was like "Yeah! You can do whatever you want." I just started to write because I was fed up of not seeing the stories that I wanted, so I was like "Stop moaning and write something."

I can't always be making "British films". Why should we be making films about corsets and horses and girls learning to drive when Americans send over an event movie and make five or 10 million?

I'm always willing to work that little bit harder to achieve what I need to achieve because I feel like it's a blessing for me to be here. I was never supposed to be here. I'm the black council estate kid, single parent, from West London, with friends that are in jail, friends that have committed heinous crimes, friends that are doing nothing. I'm not supposed to be here, therefore I have nothing to lose. I'm always going to work harder than everyone else because if it doesn't work, "So what?".