Malachi Kirby

“I never got picked for the athletics team for about three years. I was in my third year, and I really wanted to join, and I kept basically knocking on the door of the PE coach. 'Can I join? Can I join?' He's like, 'No... No.' And then one day, he's like, 'Okay, you want to race? Cool. We have a free spot for you. You're gonna be doing the 400.'”

“Charlie Brooker is crazy.”

“I think about Shakespeare. Because there have been hundreds of variations of Shakespeare's plays since they've been written, and I believe it's because they're important. They're still relevant today. 'Roots' is still relevant today. The idea that we shouldn't tell this story again is very strange to me.”

“My dad passed when I was 6. I found out when I was about 21 that my dad always said acting would be the making of me. Where he got that from, I have no idea.”

“I wasn't raised Christian. I certainly had to seek Him out and find Him, and it's changed my life. I'm so glad I did.”

“It's really cheesy, but basically, 'Roots' got me to find out my own roots.”

“Mum used to say that when I went out of the house, I represented her. I took that seriously. So I didn't get involved with a lot of things. I held myself in a particular way.”

“Kids under, I'd say, 14 are still maturing; they are still growing. They are still understanding themselves. To hit them with something like 'Roots,' to hit them with this particular period of time, it's important to discuss the matters beyond the program itself.”

“I found that there were things that God could reveal to me that I could never get myself physically.”

“There was a period when I had apple pie as a treat every day of the week. I mean, like, a family apple pie.”

“I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who's told me that the story of 'Roots' isn't important.”

“I was acting before I had given my life to Christ. But the effect that God has had on my actual career itself is now completely different.”

“When I heard that 'Roots' was being remade, my first response was, 'Seriously?' I was a bit skeptical. Then I had an audition in early 2015. I didn't know how to feel about it. I was a little scared of the responsibility of telling the story again with the weight of the first one behind me - I was scared of comparisons.”

“There are stories I wanted to tell, and they are not defined by what I look like.”

“My knowledge of my ancestry, like a lot of black people not living in Africa today, is very vague.”

“Kunta Kinte's strength derives from the knowledge of where he comes from, but it struck me that I don't know where I come from. I understand that my last name is Kirby, that I was born in London, third-generation Jamaican, and at some point along the line, that name was changed. I didn't know my history past my grandparents.”

“I was thinking, 'What is it about Kunta Kinte that allowed him to live such a long life?' For me, what came down to it was his spirit and his knowledge of self.”

“At first, I had this huge desire to play a superhero, that little kid in me. Then I realized it wasn't actually a superhero I wanted to play: it was someone fighting for a cause that's bigger than themselves, which can go into all sorts of things.”

“Schoolkids - black and white - would call me Kunta Kinte as a cuss. If ever my hair was particularly messy, if ever I looked scruffy at school, I would be called Kunta Kinte. My first impression was that it was bad to be African and bad to be associated with him.”

“There are many people still ashamed of their roots because of the negative connotations that come with being an 'African.' That sentiment exists many places around the world - in England, in the U.S., everywhere.”