Zawe Ashton

I always play outsiders. I think I'm carrying a lot of those characters and I wonder if I play them because those characters need an extra element of thought to bring them to life.

The widespread shame of motherhood is criminal, and it needs to stop. The world can never improve if you disrespect the people that bring life.

My real life memory of leaving Uni is an overwhelming excitement to be going home but also a weird numbness.

Some people shun the idea of role models but I think it's one of the most important things people have in life - role models, to look up to.

I think anyone who has been bullied finds it life-affirming if you live to tell the tale. I just wish someone told me at school that there's this weird average whereby if you're not popular at school you will become popular later.

Living with the notion that you might never have a permanent spot in the world is really quite a powerful metaphor.

Dreams of a Life' and 'Fresh Meat' have left me on such a high. I'm not complaining but I'm not complacent either.

I'm doing a play at Trafalgar Studios with The Jamie Lloyd Company - 'The Maids' by Jean Genet with Uzo Aduba and Laura Charmichael, directed by Jamie Lloyd. It's one of my favourite plays by one of my favourite playwrights.

I was very fortunate to have had three years on 'Fresh Meat,' before working on 'Not Safe for Work.' Comedy drama is a very hard genre to nail so I was very glad to have had some practice.

I think there's still a feeling within society, entertainment aside, that women are less funny than men.

If I'm wearing the wrong clothes I can't think. It sounds so weird but it just has to be the right fabrics and like the right feeling on my body.

I don't want to be 'de-ethnicised.' I hate it when people say, 'Oh I don't even think of you as a woman,' or, 'I don't even think of you as a black woman.' Well what do you think of me as then? A loaf of bread?