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" 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. "

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" I think kids are amazing. You kind of just deal with stuff, don't you? It's only years later that you have to spend thousands in therapy. "

Ruth Negga

Amazing

You

Think

" We need to have a conversation about the fact that black faces are not as visible as they should be, that there is huge inequality everywhere in terms of race. "

" 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 didn't become an actor to make money. And I didn't become an actor to be famous - though people always gasp if you say that, as if it's unfathomable that an actor doesn't want to be a star. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think that is important, to not make people feel alien. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I love the Greeks. There's no messing around - it's all do or die with them. "

" 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.' "

Ruth Negga

Unexpected

Look

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

" 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. "

Ruth Negga

Lived

Childhood

" I trained, went to college, trained, and got a job. Then got another job. When I wasn't working I worked at a bar, then got another job. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I know I've said it before in interviews, but the idea that all actors have their eye on some sort of prize - it being an Oscar, or fame, or whatever - not all actors I know are like that. "

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

Ruth Negga

Back

World

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

" When you label someone 'up and coming' or 'the new breakout,' there's this kind of expectation. And I think, like I said before, it's very hard to live up to that expectation when you really don't have that much power as an actor - in terms of your career path and the timing. "

" When I was little, I thought that everyone wanted to hold me as a baby because I was this thing of fascination. But rather than this thing that wasn't quite right, I just felt that my difference was something that was probably very exotic. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I use the term 'spine' for people when I think that they may seem on the surface sort of reticent, shy, self-deprecating, shying away from the spotlight. Quiet. "

" 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. "