Is there anything about your background, or your upbringing, that helped develop this kind of curiosity about people and the world?

When I first started reading plays it just triggered my imagination. It became almost obsessive for me. I just wanted to tell stories.

When did you first become interested in acting?

I was about 12 or 13 and I was pretty bored with school. But then we started reading plays in class and something clicked. I think it was Shakespeare's "Henry IV" that really intrigued me. It just caught my imagination. That prompted me to check out what was happening with the drama department and school, and soon I was performing. And that was that.

So you didn't want to play soccer like most other English kids?

I was never that great a sportsman. Academically I was pretty good, but I was sort of floating. Nothing had my interest until acting. And what's curious, though, is that after I got into acting, everything else became more interesting. It's like by discovering acting I discovered something inside myself. I think it's because as an actor you learn to become more adept at viewing the world.

You were born and raised in London, but your parents and family are Nigerian. Do you still have a connection there?

My family is still there in Enugu, which was formerly the capital of Biafra. And I am often back there. I like to go back and see my grandparents. And there are a lot of old friends and family in Nigeria that I love a lot.

How did your family end up moving to London?

After the war they were both students, and England was seeking out medical students.

That must have been handy considering that in "Dirty Pretty Things" you played a Nigerian doctor who had immigrated to England.

Yeah, I could certainly do the accent.

How does being black affect your place in the movie business? Are you worried about being typecast as "the black guy" or always being the first character to die?

It's a very complex question. It's not something that I feel particularly shrouded in. I look for characters. I don't care what color they are or what they're doing.

But do you think being a person of color affects the kinds of opportunities you get in the film industry?

I don't know, because I don't see what's not available to me. And what is available to me I have very much enjoyed. Every character that I've played I've wanted to play.

Hollywood has been abuzz with the success recently of African-American actors like Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington winning Oscars. Do you feel any particular solidarity with them as an actor of African descent?

I suppose like anybody else I'm very happy to see good performances rewarded, as opposed to some kind of racial complications. I have a solidarity in a sense that it should be about the work.

If I understand you correctly, then, race isn't necessarily something that you feel a sense of indignation about as it applies to the movie industry?

Race is incredibly fundamental to anybody's life in the modern world. I can't narrow it to the film industry in general. I think it extends beyond the borders of Hollywood. I think you misunderstand me if you think I don't think it's a big deal. I think it's incredibly large. But not necessarily within the confines of a script that I read or the behavior of a Hollywood mogul.

Fair enough. You've got two big movies coming up: "Serenity," a sci-fi epic, and "Four Brothers," a revenge film. How did production go?

With "Four Brothers" I just thought the part was very well written. It was also a great chance to work with John Singleton, who I've always admired very much. Before "Serenity" I never really saw myself in sci-fi. But then I read Joss Whedon's script and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. It's a character I was just itching to try.

A lot of up-and-coming actors face a familiar predicament: accepting small parts in quality movies versus larger parts in what may be lesser films. Is this something you face?

Not really. I guess if a film is going to have a larger budget, people will want marquee names. So the chance of having a big part in a film that costs, say, $200 million, is pretty unlikely for me right now. But that has nothing necessarily to do with the quality of the film. I don't think it's quite as straightforward as you suggest.

What do you like to do when you're not working?

I love to read and all that, but I would say that I'm one of those people where if I'm at home, it's very easy to get me to go out. If the phone rings, I'll probably jump up to get it. I love to go to restaurants and bars, maybe have some dinner and a vodka mix.

And are you single?

I'm not telling you.

Obviously you don't have to talk about your personal life, but don't you think to some degree such questions come with the territory when doing interviews?

Not really. It's very simple: That's not really the public's business.

Let me ask this another way, then. You clearly are principled about maintaining privacy. As your career advances and you potentially become more famous, do you worry that your personal life will be more exposed?

No, I don't think I do. You deal with what happens on the day that it happens to you.

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