Paterson Joseph

“My favourite character was the Marquis de Carabas from Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere.' I love that character because he's so flamboyant but also darkly dangerous - and he's also 200 years old.”

“I'm so keen to convey what I'm thinking and feeling, as opposed to letting the audience come to me.”

“It's only later that you realise 'All of those heroes of mine were white.' Not because I didn't know any better, but because I had no other choices.”

“I don't feel guilty about much.”

“It was the only thing I could do at school: I was rubbish at everything else but I could read aloud. It was the only thing I didn't get caned for or told I was stupid. So I've loved doing it all my life.”

“My son introduced me to 'New Girl,' which I didn't think I would like, but I'm completely charmed by it.”

“I live in France, I don't live in the States and I don't live in London, so I'm not immersed in the profession. I come in, do my work, and then I go home again, to a place where nobody knows me. So it makes it trickier to pursue a film career, or even any kind of structured career, not living in the places where it's happening.”

“Shakespeare taught me everything I know about love. Its vibrancy. How afterwards your life seems darker. And everything I know about power, too - about the selfishness of ambition.”

“It takes a long time to shoot 'Peep Show' whenever I do a scene - that's probably why I don't do much stuff on it!”

“I'm not a big movie-watcher, but I do watch quite a bit of TV.”

“I wasn't a bully, I wasn't horrible, but a lot of teachers just took against me. I think it was because, in the late 60s, there weren't a lot of pupils who looked like me.”

“I will have succeeded if young people go off wanting to do more research on black England.”

“There was nothing around me that would have given me heroes who happened to be Black. And I don't think anybody can understand how that feels, unless you are that person. It's very difficult to understand what it's like to be shut out of a narrative.”

“In no other genre can you be believable as an immortal character. I love sci-fi for that, so yeah - I'm a big fan.”

“Each case - each story - is interesting in itself. I think that's what 'Law & Order: U.K.' maintains and that's why it can go on with whoever's doing it, because the story is key - not the soap opera, the lives of the policeman or the barristers. It's about the actual story of the crime itself - how did it happen and who was guilty.”

“People who are racist, they love, they laugh, they are committed to their family and their friends. They're human beings. This is what's so difficult about it. They've got a mental block. They've been conditioned.”

“It's interesting to think that somebody could be a virulent racist... but actually that doesn't make somebody inhuman. It just means that they've got a world view that is perhaps not acceptable to those of us who find that anathema.”

“I don't know any black actors who are as short as I am.”

“As an actor, I want to be in works that reflect black presence in the U.K. throughout the nation's history.”

“I expect most actors would admit to a touch of jealousy, or healthy envy, if they see fellow actors in an excellent piece of work on TV or in the theatre.”