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" Ninety percent of my roles, I've had to fight for. It's only a really small percentage of people who get handed roles. "

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" 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 don't think I've necessarily been able to pick and choose in my career; I don't know how many people do. But I'll tell you what I've been able to do: I've been able to say no. It is the only thing you can hold on to sometimes, is that ability to say 'no.' And I think that in that way, you can create some kind of career. "

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

" 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. "

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

" America has a black president, but there are no black studio heads, and there just aren't that many black people working anywhere on film sets, let alone in positions of power in Hollywood. That's what needs to change. "

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

" I've always been very talkative, very chatty, quite hyperactive. I grew up with a lot of cousins, and most of them were boys. Four in particular and I were the demolition squad. Havoc. "

" 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. "

" My job as an artist is to speak up for those who might be perceived as the losers. Or those who can't shout. No wonder public-school people always get into politics or acting: they're taught to shout that much more loudly. "

" Violence in film and television is an ongoing conversation, and I like eavesdropping on it, but I'm never sure what my opinion is. I like watching creative violence, but I don't know. "

" When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like you're in the way. "

" I'm always very careful to say I'm Irish-Ethiopian because I feel Ethiopian and I look Ethiopian and I am Ethiopian. But there are 81 languages in Ethiopia, and I don't know any of them. "

" I didn't have that many black people in my life, so I had to sort of search them out. And I didn't grow up in America, but I identified as much with their writing about the black experience as I did with their writing about the human experience. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" There are no actions involved in 'beautiful.' It's such an inactive thing, and it's so subject to each individual's taste and appreciation. It's a lovely word, but I feel like it's been hijacked by really boring, dull people who don't understand how to use words. "

" 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. "

" 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 think it's a good thing for everybody that we see the entire world reflected back at us on our screens. "

" If people want to invade your privacy, they want to invade your privacy. I find it chilling, and I find it awful, and it makes me really nervous. It hasn't happened to me much, but when you have a taste of it, it's bitter. "

" I'm interested in the idea that we all start off as these lovely little babies with all this potential but that circumstances mean that we don't always live the life we should. "

" We all have as much right to take up our space in the world as one another. "

" Women always have to have this soft, maternal, sort of - I don't know - moral center. "

" 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 was moved by the 'Lovings' story because of my own background as a mixed-race person. "

" People have always made assumptions about me. I become very territorial about my identity because it's been hijacked by so many people with their own projections. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "