I've always believed in instinct over intellect. The instinct is what you always knew; intellect is what you figure out.
The thing is, with 'This Is England', you're always thinking as yourself. You're acting on an instinct. You're acting on what you've heard, what you've been told, and what's happened beforehand.
The best option that you can have as an actor is pure instinct and you should be able to protect your instinct. Information can either cloud your instinct or aid it.
I always believed in the YouTube community and myself. I saw something there. The most difficult thing was others not believing in me. I had a lot of friends in Los Angeles who really thought I was crazy for leaving a steady acting job to start on YouTube.
Acting was my classroom in many ways and I always believed and I still do that acting is not just about pretending to be someone else, it's also about discovering yourself and reaching deeper inside yourself.
I think life is instinct, and I just really go by that. That's one of the things I've learned - to always trust my instinct and it's always served me well.
Who I always refer to as my acting mentor when I got into junior college is an acting professor by the name of Tom Blank. He took me under his wing, and he was that strong male figure. He was tough love, but he believed in me, saw everything that I had.
Wilberforce did not believe in either evolution or extinction.
Owen believed in extinction but not evolution.
Lamarck believed in evolution but not extinction.
Darwin believed in evolution and extinction.
All four of them believed in God.
I've noticed it a lot. I'm not someone who revises. It's always the first movement, it's that. It's an instinct. Either it works straight away, or it won't ever work.
I basically have two ways I start writing. Either I'll start with something about myself, or something that happened to me that seemed important, or I'll start with some idea I have that doesn't have much to do with me. But one will always lead to the other.
The thing that you have to understand about those of us in the Black Muslim movement was that all of us believed 100 percent in the divinity of Elijah Muhammad. We believed in him. We actually believed that God, in Detroit by the way, that God had taught him and all of that. I always believed that he believed in himself. And I was shocked when I found out that he himself didn't believe it.
I always go by instinct and then wrestle with where by instinct brought me.
I have always believed that chemistry can't be created between two people. You either have it or you don't. The script can only enhance it.
I always believe your instinct is the most correct instinct.
For me acting is a passion and an art, and always will only be that. I don't have any rules when it comes to acting. I'll do anything. But it depends on the script. Either I'll have passion for the project or I won't. It's got to fuel me.
I've always believed in trying to be as open as possible. I think it almost comes with the job - if you can bare your emotions, it makes for better acting.