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" I was an attention seeker, always in trouble. "

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" I'm all for philosophical debates about race, but if you look at history, you see that the status quo has power when it's unchallenged. So these conversations about inequality are crucial. "

" I am not hugely famous; I am not a name. For me, it's not the size of the role, it's the material and the people you are working with. "

" I work best when there's a safety trampoline of kindness. "

" I think if we don't understand history, if we don't keep referring back to it, we become complacent. And complacency, as we all know, it leads to repeating history. "

" I've met loads of black and brown and various people who are well into comics. "

" I become very territorial about my identity because it's been hijacked by so many people with their own projections. "

" You don't come to see a Greek play and not want blood and gore and depth of feeling from your boots up. "

" I don't like the term 'colour-blind' - because I don't want people to be blind to my colour. "

" When I was a kid in Ireland, there were not very many black people. I was very much like the strange brown thing, intriguing and cute. I didn't experience racism there. The first time I did was in London. It was that moment that you realize you're black. A kind of lifting of the veil. "

" I don't believe that directors need to essentially manipulate actors into doing things. You can suffer for your art, and you can make your own self suffer for your art. You don't need anyone else to do it for you. I work best when there's a safety trampoline of kindness. "

" I had a very peripatetic childhood, so I bounced around. Lived in Ethiopia until I was, like, three or four and then lived between Ireland and London. "

" I'm not in any rush to get anywhere. There's a pressure on actors to get somewhere before it's over. But everyone wants longevity, don't they? It's a career. Why be that flash-in-the-pan, taking every job out of worry it'll soon be over? "

" I've gone into auditions, and I think they have an assumption about me when they see my photo, and then I open my mouth, and they say, 'Where exactly are you from? And you were born in Ethiopia? But you're Irish, but you also kind of sound English. That's really strange.' "

" What's really important is the people, first of all. I like working with people who are kind, above all else. I don't really want to work with someone who will manipulate me. The idea that you must treat actors a certain way in order to get a performance out of them kind of disturbs me, and it's disregarding what we do. Our job is to do our job. "

" You know when you're a kid and you get to pick a movie every Friday? I watched everything. There's no particular genre that was appealing. I just loved the idea that you could dress up and play. "

" The god of theater laughs in your face at planning. You can't plan as an actor; there's no way, because so much of it is dependent on other people's choices and decisions that you're at the whim of fate, really. "

" Stories about race and identity pique my interest for obvious reasons. That's in my body, my brain, my history, my memories - it's all part of my toolbox as an actor. "

" I think a lot of actors feel like outsiders or miscreants. This profession provides an opportunity to play out all the different parts of ourselves. "

" People have these ideas about comic books and their adaptations as flashy and sort of surface-y, broad-strokes-type projects, but they're not, really. "

" I grew up in a lot of different places, so I pick up accents pretty quickly. "

" What I have wanted to do is take roles that are unexpected for people who look like me. Roles that the establishment would say, 'Oh, she couldn't possibly be that.' "

" I don't know why women aren't allowed to have the same sort of breadth and scope and flaws of men. "

" I auditioned for 'Loving' two years before we started shooting, so in the hopes that I would be playing Mildred, I watched it again. Also it's one of the best documentaries I've seen. I found this couple interminably fascinating; even if I didn't get the part, I just wanted to know more about them and their story. "

" Diversity needs to operate on every level. It's great that the Oscars have highlighted it, but black actors getting nominated shouldn't be the only result. There's so much more that needs to be done. "

" In many ways, playing a real person is slightly easier because you have a road map. When you're playing someone fictitious, there's myriad ways in. With a real person, there's boundaries, and that sometimes makes the work easier. "

" I don't really know how strong someone is if they're compelled to a life of violence. Is that strong? No. That's damaged. "

" The good thing about auditioning is that you get to test yourself and see if you can play this character - you're also auditioning yourself. "

" Ireland is home. And I'd love to move home. That's always been the plan. "

" Some people say to me, 'You don't sound very Irish.' It's because I have this tendency to iron out my accent: not because I'm ashamed of it but because it makes my life easier if I don't keep having to repeat myself. "

" I think if you don't risk something in art, it's not really important. "