Art Malik

“When will we get a female director-general of the BBC? Where is the colour when you go further up the food chain? It disappears.”

“I grew up in Balham in south London, and my best friend's brother was Geoffrey Robinson, who of course later became paymaster general, but at that time, he was working in politics.”

“I questioned the blind faith demanded by my religion, which was Islam.”

“The easiest bit is when you're talking. It's listening that is so difficult. If you get out any Spencer Tracy film, you think, 'Wow, he's doing nothing, yet he's doing everything.'”

“I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties and remember how unpleasant all kinds of food could be then.”

“There are certain things that I know I don't want to do anymore. Playing out-and-out terrorists who terrorise people and don't actually move the conversation on are not worth doing. So that's probably another reason I don't go back to America, because a lot of it is like that. It's boring, dull, very lazy writing.”

“To see the difference between when I came to Britain in 1955 with what it is today, to see how the sub-continent has been embraced, it is quite extraordinary.”

“I was lucky enough to be launched into the marketplace with the blessing of a series like 'Jewel.'”

“There was so much racism when I was a kid, but it was also ignorant.”

“My idea of a great holiday is not to go out. It's to find somewhere where I'm not confronted by people coming up to me and saying, 'You're Art Malik, aren't you?' It's quite nice sometimes not to be recognised.”

“When we did 'The Jewel In The Crown,' we filmed in India first so the actors had an idea of what the heat was like, what it did to you - it slows you down; it's weighty: the air that you breathe is full of humidity. You are aware of the fact that you're not in a studio in Manchester.”

“I'm lucky: I've got great photogenic eyes. You're up and running if you've got that and one brain cell to attach it to.”

“Am I overjoyed when somebody says, 'Oh, we're going to do another Jane Austen?' No - because there's never anything in it for me.”

“I was doing 'Homeland' and read the first two episodes, and all I wanted was episode three to know what would happen next.”

“How can you turn down Marks and Gran? Their scripts are so rich in texture.”

“Most families are dysfunctional.”

“Acting's a job. I act to fill the fridge.”

“I love listening to music on holiday, and back in the old days, I used to travel with cassette tapes and a boombox.”

“My own mother is very accomplished and makes things like bahar breads as though they are going out of fashion - they are like stuffed parathas and can contain anything from potatoes to poppy seeds.”

“I would like to go to Iceland to see the northern lights.”