You can't afford for there to be gaps in your pool of knowledge when it comes to a character; otherwise, what ends up onscreen is generalized and unspecific.

We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.

There are many, many communities, many ethnic minorities, many civilizations that have been brutalised by others and you have to move on. You cannot perpetually stay in that place of blame, otherwise it's just a downward spiral.

My grandfather was the king of a region in western Nigeria, where I had the privilege to live for seven years while growing up. But what we think of as royalty in the U.K. is very different to royalty in Nigeria: if you were to throw a stone there, you would hit about 30 princes.

If you feel like the beginning of your history is rooted in slavery, that really, I think, messes with your sense of self, your self-esteem, and your self-worth.

You really want to keep ringing the changes - you hope that your work and your choices make people excited about where you're going next and that that might be somewhere unexpected.