I don't think I have ever thought of myself as a movie star. I think when I was about seven, I thought it must be lovely to have an Oscar. But the more involved you are in this business, the more that pretence disappears, and you really get to see what you love about it, and what I love is working.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.'

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.

History is written by the winners. My job as an artist is to speak up for those who might be perceived as the losers. Or those who can't shout.

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.

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.

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'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 trust anyone who doesn't change their mind.

My whole life is an interracial relationship! It's inescapable. I am who I am.

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

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.

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

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.

When you connect to someone on a human level, and you get to know about them, you can begin to love the things that make them different. That's when fear dissipates, and that's when we can live the life that we're all supposed to be living.

When you connect to someone on a human level, and you get to know about them, you can begin to love the things that make them different.

I'm not the most articulate person.

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

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.

People ask me where I'm from. I say Ireland, and they are like 'Really? You don't look Irish.' Then you have to explain... people are intrigued, but sometimes you think, 'Why do I have to tell my whole story every time I open my mouth?

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

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.

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'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 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'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.'

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 was an attention seeker, always in trouble.

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

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.

Sometimes, people know me from Marvel's 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' But that usually only happens in America.

Sometimes it's hard to play someone so similar to you, because you can muddy the character. Often, it's easier to play someone further away from you, because it's clearer who they are.

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

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.

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 like connecting with people, and that's what good art is: a point of connection. There's nothing better, on stage or on film.

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 think if you want to make a performance authentic, there are a certain amount of leaps of faith into the unknown that you have to take. Otherwise, you're not really risking anything. I think if you don't risk something in art, it's not really important.