Art Malik

My idea of a great holiday is not to go out. It's to find somewhere where I'm not confronted by people coming up to me and saying, 'You're Art Malik, aren't you?' It's quite nice sometimes not to be recognised.

When will we get a female director-general of the BBC? Where is the colour when you go further up the food chain? It disappears.

Not until somebody turns round and says, 'Art, how do you fancy playing Charles Dickens? How do you fancy playing Prince Charles in this biopic?' Until those movements come, then no, we haven't got past anything.

I've had a fantastic career playing great parts. In many ways, the colour of my skin has been an asset because I've been asked to play certain roles as a result. I don't apologise for playing them anymore than Robert de Niro is sorry for playing American-Italians.

Acting's a job. I act to fill the fridge.

There are certain things that I know I don't want to do anymore. Playing out-and-out terrorists who terrorise people and don't actually move the conversation on are not worth doing. So that's probably another reason I don't go back to America, because a lot of it is like that. It's boring, dull, very lazy writing.

There was so much racism when I was a kid, but it was also ignorant.

You can watch TV and see experts of all different colours and hues. But the minute you get past nine o'clock and you're in primetime drama land, it's like entering another world, one that doesn't reflect the diversity of the society that we have in Britain in 2016.

I grew up in a Britain where 'Paki-bashing' was around in my late teens from the National Front. We also had 'Pakis Go Home,' and even 'Jewel In The Crown' attracted this sort of comment.

I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties and remember how unpleasant all kinds of food could be then.

When we did 'The Jewel In The Crown,' we filmed in India first so the actors had an idea of what the heat was like, what it did to you - it slows you down; it's weighty: the air that you breathe is full of humidity. You are aware of the fact that you're not in a studio in Manchester.

I have therapy. Every day. I read a bit of Freud; I try to be a better person. Every day.