Growing up, I really looked up to the classic Hollywood actors like Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Falk. I love character actors - I've never wanted to be the leading guy.

I am the youngest of four children - three boys and one girl. I don't think becoming an actor had anything to do with seeking attention, though. My relationship with my siblings when I was growing up was close and playful.

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.

The area where I grew up in Birmingham was very diverse - I was aware of my race but not overly aware of it - and there seemed to be an understanding that we were all very much in the same boat.

A fascinating reaction of the human brain when we fail to meet a goal is that it tells us to throw caution to the wind and make things even worse, which ultimately leads to us giving up.

Sanity is surely not about normality in the statistical sense: it is about an eternal and natural idea of the healthy personality - which indeed may be a rare achievement.

Remembering what you've been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you're feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

I understood immediately that to get success I had to make for the front door, not for the back one.