“I’m not here to talk about black people;
I’m here to talk about diversity.
Diversity in the modern world is more than just skin colour.
- it’s gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, social background, and - most important of all, as far as I’m concerned – diversity of thought.
Because if you have genuine diversity of thought among people making TV & film, then you won’t accidentally shut out any of the groups I just mentioned.
Anyway, on the whole, I don’t think of myself as just a ‘black actor’. I’m an actor, not a number. Just like anyone else…
And the other thing was, because I never saw myself or my culture on TV, I stopped watching TV. Instead I decided to just go out and become TV.
If I aspired to be on a level with the Denzel Washington’s, and the Robert de Niro’s, I had to reinvent myself.
I had to transform the way industry saw me.
I had to climb out of the box…“