I've always been very talkative, very chatty, quite hyperactive. I grew up with a lot of cousins, and most of them were boys. Four in particular and I were the demolition squad. Havoc.
From Ruth Negga
What I have wanted to do is take roles that are unexpected for people who look like me. Roles that the establishment would say, 'Oh, she couldn't possibly be that.'
I've gone into auditions, and I think they have an assumption about me when they see my photo, and then I open my mouth, and they say, 'Where exactly are you from? And you were born in Ethiopia? But you're Irish, but you also kind of sound English. That's really strange.'
The idea that you must treat actors a certain way in order to get a performance out of them kind of disturbs me, and it's disregarding what we do. Our job is to do our job.
You can suffer for your art, and you can make your own self suffer for your art. You don't need anyone else to do it for you.
I work best when there's a safety trampoline of kindness.
If people want to invade your privacy, they want to invade your privacy. I find it chilling, and I find it awful, and it makes me really nervous. It hasn't happened to me much, but when you have a taste of it, it's bitter.
You know when you're a kid and you get to pick a movie every Friday? I watched everything. There's no particular genre that was appealing. I just loved the idea that you could dress up and play.
Ninety percent of my roles, I've had to fight for. It's only a really small percentage of people who get handed roles.
I'm always very careful to say I'm Irish-Ethiopian because I feel Ethiopian and I look Ethiopian and I am Ethiopian. But there are 81 languages in Ethiopia, and I don't know any of them.
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