David Harewood

“Before 'Homeland,' I had £80 in the bank and no idea what I was going to do. I seriously considered giving it all up and getting a job as a lorry driver.”

“British people are surprised that I'm British! It's extraordinary, I get tweets every day from British people saying, 'I had no idea you were British.'”

“I watched the night unfold from beginning to end on my own here in my flat in Budapest where I've been working for the last six months, and when it was announced that Barack Obama was indeed president-elect, I wept.”

“I love the stage, but it doesn't pay the mortgage.”

“Two years after drama school, I had a nervous breakdown: I heard voices, and the voice I heard in my head was Martin Luther King's.”

“Back in 2005, the Anthony Nolan Trust could have asked me just to speak out about the lack of ethnic minority donors on the bone marrow register, but that would have meant nothing if I wasn't prepared to join up myself.”

“I've done so much different stuff, people kinda go, 'Do you live in Islington?' 'Did you used to go to so and so school?' And when I say I'm an actor, they don't believe me!”

“As an actor, whether I'm playing Othello on stage or David Estes on 'Homeland,' that ability to give into your imagination is something that I enjoy.”

“I love New York. New York is busy. It's dirty. It's smelly. I'm a real urban animal: I love cities. I like being in the middle of it all.”

“For the charities, their relationships with celebrity supporters should be as deep and purposeful as the ones they have with any of their supporters and volunteers, based on a genuine understanding of the issues they're tackling.”

“I'm very fortunate. I loved school and, when I went there, race, gangs and violence were not issues. There was a feeling, gone now, that you had to be presentable. If you hadn't combed your hair, older black ladies - complete strangers - would come up to you in the street and pull out a comb and straighten your tie.”

“I've been acting for 27 years, and anonymity has always been a part of what I do. Of course you get recognised every now and again, but 'Homeland' pushed me into a completely different strata, and that took me by surprise.”

“I remember coming back to the U.K. after spending five months in Charlotte for 'Homeland,' and I just found myself just wandering around London. There's nothing like it - the buildings, the architecture, the sense of history, the sense of culture - there really is nothing like it.”

“We live in a world of strange priorities, where Kim Kardashian buying a Lamborghini creates international headlines, but children in Niger suffering from drought and children in Britain suffering from leukaemia go unnoticed.”

“I grew up in Birmingham, but my parents are originally from Barbados. My dad, Romeo, was a long-distance lorry driver, and my mother, Mayleen, worked in catering.”

“Everybody can, you know, go online, read about something, and have an opinion about something.”

“In England, you feel like a member of the revolutionary guard the minute you even mention race. But I do think that the OscarsSoWhite phenomenon will have to reflect back on England. What people are essentially saying is that they want to see more diverse stories. It's not about putting three black people in the back of the shot.”

“People come up and say very nice things about my work, like, 'You were great in 'Blood Diamond!'”

“Myself, I believe that black theatre continues to evolve, and the success of writers like Bola Agbaje and Rachel De-lahay is proof that fresh voices continue to emerge.”

“I'm a nut for these 'crime reality' shows. Things like 'Forensic Files,' 'Forensic Detectives.'”