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Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it's important. It's also interesting.

I'm a mixed race lad from Liverpool. I get to play a lot of hard characters, and some people perceive that's what I'm like, but it's great for me 'cos they're always the most interesting characters.

I enjoy having the ability to play a variety of ethnicities. Being ethnically ambiguous allows me to explore many roles, and I enjoy being free to be whoever I want to be.

Whatever your ethnicity is, in this life you are going to be on a journey to discover who you are and how you feel about yourself.

I've been very lucky to have played a variety of characters, and they weren't defined by their race.

Sometimes my ethnicity is relevant, other times not. I definitely get the best of both worlds.

I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.

I think my roles have been wonderfully varied. Not one has been racially stereotypical, and I have purposely chosen them like that.

In a lot of films, they're showing more complete, developed characters of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The larger concern is to be able to tastefully explore the stereotypes, and still move past them to see the core of people.