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" No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true. "

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" I've been very lucky to have played a variety of characters, and they weren't defined by their race. "

" I get good references from a wide range of music. Something who's been a good influence in the last few years is Qawwali music. If you listen to a Qawwali singer like Aziz Mian - he's like James Brown. Qawwali is like Pakistani gospel-jazz. It's emotional, but it's also improvised, and it's all about that sacred-and-profane tightrope. "

" My music is a very personal reflection of me, whereas, acting a role, that's a reflection of another character. "

" I like the idea of being caught between things, always being a bit of an outsider, having an outside eye on things - almost like a Shakespearean fool. "

" Reshoots are par for the course on any film. For me, I kind of love it because, as an actor, you always feel that there was a way you could have done it differently. Being able to go back and do some stuff again is always a blessing in my eyes. "

" There's this assumption that as an actor, Hollywood is always the end point, but I never thought along those lines. "

" Nothing will turn you into more of a 'Star Wars' fan than being on a 'Star Wars' set. When you see how lovingly that world is rendered by the set designers, costume designers, props department, art department, they genuinely build an actual world. That is not an exaggeration. They build a world. "

" I remember, growing up, you didn't wear an England shirt. The English flag was very much - and still is, to some extent - associated with the far-right movements of the 1980s that I grew up around. "

" I'm not trying to project any persona. Often people don't know where to put me. I don't fit comfortably under banners, and that's fine. I'm not worried about not making sense to people. That's probably my best asset. "

" The only people who have doubts about the sincerity of my music are people who come to it relatively late, off the back of having seen me in a film. Acting is about being other people, and music is about being myself. "

" Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life. "

" Anyone driving great social change, willingly or not, is going to be a fascinating contradictory mix of idealism and ego. "

" I don't feel that any kind of narrow stereotypes are representative of the work I've done, nor the range of the audience that work has found. I've played lots of different roles, and they've connected with lots of different people. "

" The music I make and the process of acting, for me, are both about trying to understand people and get inside what makes us tick. That's the main thing that excites me. Our sense of who we really are and what drives us. "

" Whether you look at 'Glee' and its normalization of gay identity or you look at the work of Martin Scorsese and the Italian-American community, American culture is able to take these stories, which are seen as marginalized, and just turn them into American stories. And you don't think twice about it. "

" I'm not in a 'starry' position to be able to pick and choose, but I am interested in telling stories of substance with great directors - that's my only guiding principle. "

" It's interesting - what are you willing to give up in terms of your privacy for access to other people? For access to things you think you desperately need. Ultimately, it's that old saying, isn't it? If the service is free, then the product is you. The thing being sold is you. There's a product for sale in you and your data. "

" Hollywood is an image. We project these fantasies on to it, but people are just people. "

" I never thought acting would be a realistic job for me. Because, quite frankly, I didn't see people who looked like me doing it. I quickly realized, that's all the more reason to try. "

" When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well. "

" The camera or the microphone in the booth is merciless. If you don't believe what you're saying, it hears it. If you don't believe it, it sees it in your eyes, it hears it in your voice that there isn't the conviction there. "

" Bandwagons roll through our lives. It's up to you whether you jump on them unquestioningly or jump on them to overturn them and subvert them. "

" Trajectories aren't linear. Life's just a roller coaster. If you're getting a chance to do cool stuff, and it's varied stuff, just enjoy it. I guess I'm a believer in the randomness of life rather than it being a linear trajectory or an arc, a consistent smooth arc, towards anything. "

" Rehearsing a scene beds a role into you. But sometimes, if you over-rehearse it without unearthing any new meaning in it, you can suddenly forget your lines. You realise that you are on a stage, not in the real world. The scene's emotional power, and your immersion in it, disappears. "

" My parents, man, they're just the most loving, encouraging... They're like those people who define themselves through their role as parents before people in their own rights. "

" You can read a character that feels amazing, but if the world around it and all the writing around it - even the way the stage descriptions are written - don't feel just right, then you know there's no point in doing the project. No character is ever bigger than the whole film. "

" It's interesting that we assign the label 'political' to art that doesn't just fit a mould of status quo. Is 'Downton Abbey' not political? That's political! Every piece of art offers a perspective on the world. And what is politics if not a perspective on the world? 'Downton Abbey' is about class. It's also about race. "

" I'm always trying to slip out of those labels everyone tries to put round your neck. We all have multiple selves. "

" What's interesting about the U.K. is that it celebrates an alternative voice. It's up for telling new stories. "

" Maybe I don't ever fully switch off, but I think the way I offset that is by splitting my time between film and music. I always want to challenge myself and grow, fail, self-flagellate, and then try again. "