A biography for Paterson Josephhasn’t been written yet.
“Drama must give us a view not just of what was, but of what could be.”
“It sometimes feels that I was born in the wrong time.”
“I deplore people who can't keep their word.”
“I enjoyed 'Hunters' on Amazon Prime, which is the Al Pacino series about Nazi hunters in 1980s U.S. The subject matter is so difficult, but they manage to make it entertaining without making it twee or too light-hearted. Plus you get a big chunk of history, and that is my favourite thing.”
“I'm definitely not an adrenalin junkie; I get enough of that at work. Holidays are always a matter of relaxing and spending time doing nothing. I like to eat and drink and not worry about it.”
“When I got to secondary school I copped out and started bunking off.”
“The fact that, I've heard anecdotally, careers officers regularly tell students who think about a career in the arts, particularly in acting, not to do it because they'd be in so much debt they'd probably never pay it back is frightening to me.”
“What I thought about multi-ethnic Britain pre-Windrush and what I now know has, for me, changed for ever the meaning of the words black British.”
“Why are British actors revered in America? Because it's a place of excellence. This is where we are trained to be excellent. There's a richness here.”
“That the whole world is not the West and that there are other ways of doing things, whether it's eating, seeing or valuing life.”
“The wealth of our country was based on free labour, and that free labour was African labour - our ancestors.”
“Whenever I do comedy, my trouble is that I laugh too much - I enjoy myself too much, so it's quite expensive to have me as a comedy actor! I just giggle at everything and everyone!”
“I spent most of my time in libraries or Brent Cross shopping centre. I didn't understand what school was about. I was just lost.”
“I always thought of Doctor Who as being an older guy - Jon Pertwee was mine - older than me now and somehow slightly dangerous. You need him to get through these situations because of everything he's seen and experienced, but you can never quite trust him or ever really know what he's thinking.”
“History is a Pandora's box. We've opened it now, we can't pretend stuff doesn't exist.”
“My academic struggles were no barrier to my ambitions to be the best that I could be. To be someone who could contribute positively to society at large and to encourage those nearest me to do the same.”
“I think the god of acting is kind to me.”
“My curiosity and my academic side only really came through outside of school life.”
“The British had this idea they were heroes in the anti-slavery movement but they also were beneficiaries of the slavery trade. It was a bit of a thorn in the flesh.”
“As I know from my own experience, I may have the skill and the training to wield, say, a Bronte hero's finely turned phrases, but it'll be a cold day in hell when I'm even in the room for the Mr. Darcy auditions.”