When I decided to go to university I didn't know what I wanted to do. When I had an opportunity to take an elective I took Drama by chance, even though I'd never taken a Drama course or even been in a play in high school. Two years later I was majoring in Drama and I knew I wanted to be an actor.
I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was growing up, really. So when I decided to go to university instead of drama school, it was with the intention of becoming an actor afterwards.
I got into university to study graphic design, and I got into drama school as well, so I had the choice whether I wanted to go down the sensible route or if I wanted to become an actor.
I'd always wanted to go to drama school. My life plan was to get into drama school and become an actor, but it took me three years.
I realized that the actors that I liked and admired all went to drama school and got an agent that way. So I started when I was about 16 in drama school, and then I knew I had to wait until I was 18 so I could go on auditions, and I tried to get into one of the ones that I liked and then go from there.
I haven't always wanted to be an actor, no. I wasn't one of the little kids that was desperate to be an actor. I did a lot of drama and a lot of music, but it was just something for fun on the side. I was quite shy as a kid and I found a lot of freedom in performing. I never knew you could do it as a job.
The Professional Children's School, it's for professional kids, so if you wanted to ditch, you could just write, Audition on a note and leave. I didn't really like school all that much.
There is a lot of hype about drama school, I think. If you're an actor in England, that's just the way to get into it but I've been so incredibly lucky in that I was brought up in to it. I still might go to drama school, if I wanted to do theater work, definitely. It's a completely different type of training.
I was lucky to get into drama school and become a professional actor. No-one ever mentioned the colour of my skin. It's only when I came out of RADA - the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art - that I suddenly realised people started to refer to me as a black actor.
I wanted to be an actor. Maybe a comic actor, but an actor. That's what got me into acting was putting on an act, because in life, I wasn't funny and I felt on stage or in the movies, I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free.
I trained as a singer before I was an actor. I was a kid singer, I went to theater and choir school, and then I got music scholarships throughout my education. And that's what I was going to do. And then I took a left turn and went to drama school and became an actor.
I made a very concerted decision to go to drama school in the United States. But I did have the opportunity to go to Britain's Central School of Speech and Drama, and my dad and I had a few tense words about that. He wanted me to go to British drama school.
I definitely knew I wanted to be an actor in high school. I was doing plays and musicals, and I loved 'Saturday Night Live' and thought that was what I wanted to do - funny sketches and comedies. So I knew then, but I didn't know how to go about it, but I found my way.
I would tell anyone who wanted to be an actor not to bother with drama school.
My school didn't have a drama department. I was one of the lucky four children who got to travel twice a week to another school because our school could only afford one taxi.
I started studying theater in school, and then I got into drama school at, like, 19, and it was a national drama school in Montreal, and so it was just you and nine other students for three years, and it was really intense.