“When I think of the things that I want to write, I can never say them ...” — Michaela Coel Quote

When I think of the things that I want to write, I can never say them out loud because I know how crazy they sound. I know what things sound like when you haven't actually worked on the script, so I don't go around saying some of these ideas because they just sound awful.

Where I grew up, in Aldgate, east London, one of the poorest boroughs in the country, I saw lots that was real - the bankers with their briefcases, the man next door with five wives, the illegal immigrants in Flat 5. I'm from a world you rarely see on screen, and I want to show it off.

Being fetishized because of my skin? I've definitely encountered that wall of people.

I definitely believe in spirituality. I like to pray, but I'm not praying to something that I can define; I'm just speaking because I know it does have an effect.

I got a job as soon as I graduated from school. I always wanted to bartend because I love listening to people and how awful their lives are.

But I did an awful lot of work in Hollywood, and in New York for that matter.

I feel like plenty of people have normal-seeming families that, as they're growing up, feel awful. I'd rather have one that looks weird from the outside but felt really normal.

People talk about grief as if it's kind of an unremittingly awful thing, and it is. It is painful, but it's a very, very interesting sort of thing to go through, and it really helps you out. At the end of the day, it gets you through because you have to reform your relationship, and you have to figure out a way of getting to the future.