How long have we got to talk about women of colour and imposter syndrome. It's a real thing, and many people have it. It's, I think, a particular characteristic of the overachiever. Because you're bottomless, you never think what you've achieved is enough.

Zawe Ashton

A lobster roll and a few glasses of fizz and I'm happy.

I'm doing a play at Trafalgar Studios with The Jamie Lloyd Company - 'The Maids' by Jean Genet with Uzo Aduba and Laura Charmichael, directed by Jamie Lloyd. It's one of my favourite plays by one of my favourite playwrights.

Zawe Ashton

Wright Wit Ted

I'm a keen experimenter in the kitchen. With food, not with anything else!

Zawe Ashton

Men Food Wit

I've had doors slammed in my face, I've been shouted at in my face in meetings when I've stood up for myself.

Zawe Ashton

Up Too Tin

As a woman, you do have a sense that if you can do other things, then you should. If you feel, mmm, the roles are getting a little repetitive, and you know you can write, then you should write a different role.

Zawe Ashton

Pet You Write

Mum got me involved in every activity under the sun - singing, dancing and drama classes at the Anna Scher theatre school.

Zawe Ashton

Very UN Theatre

I don't think there's a part that I've played or something I've written or directed that hasn't smacked of 'The Wizard Of Oz.' It's the film all roads lead to for me.

Zawe Ashton

Art Written Wizard Of Oz

I have no idea how to ever sell myself in a snazzy way.

Zawe Ashton

Way T Sell

I plan on having a long career. I don't want to burn out.

Zawe Ashton

Car Want T

I got into a habit really early about not talking about work, ever.

Zawe Ashton

Work Talking Talk

For me, the banner that I want to wave in terms of giving a jump start to writers of any gender is just to make female protagonists as complex as their male counterparts.

Zawe Ashton

Art Writers Writer

I'm a card-carrying existentialist.

Zawe Ashton

Car Yin Tent

I do consider myself an artist.

Zawe Ashton

Art Tis T

I've always wanted to live somewhere extremely nice like Sloane Square… although that would probably be too nice for me.

Zawe Ashton

Would Where Ways

If you're looking for reps, write letters that are short and professional. Make sure you have a really great reel of yourself. If there are friends you know who are making short films, do them - it's all material for your reel.

Zawe Ashton

Great Yourself Yours

I hate when there's a band that you've loved and you go and see them and it's like only the really new experimental stuff from the current album.

Zawe Ashton

Men Love You

I have a very short attention span.

Zawe Ashton

Very Tent Ten

Anyone who's been an usher knows it's a training in resilience. But you get such a film education. And the popcorn's free.

Zawe Ashton

Education You Who

For me, food is all about nostalgia.

Zawe Ashton

Food T Out

Don't worry if you're interesting enough or beautiful enough or any of the 'enoughs.'

Zawe Ashton

You Worry Tin

Being yourself, or being judged as yourself, is really scary.

Zawe Ashton

When you get to do things you love with every fiber of your being, it's a different experience.

Zawe Ashton

I'm not really sure what defines 'success in the real world' to be honest! It's so objective once you graduate, some people work, some people start families, some go looking for themselves up mountains in Peru.

Zawe Ashton

If I'm wearing the wrong clothes I can't think. It sounds so weird but it just has to be the right fabrics and like the right feeling on my body.

Zawe Ashton

From the outside, some people might consider me a hipster!

Zawe Ashton

In the future, the idea would be to create work for myself, as a way to work up into my 80s if nothing else. But also, I want to cast my friends in things or people I saw who weren't working and I'd be like, 'Why aren't you working, I don't understand - I'll write you a role in something.'

Zawe Ashton

I do always try and do work that I'm going to be interested in talking about when it's released.

Zawe Ashton

I don't tend to go into any job thinking about the audience reaction.

Zawe Ashton

The first film I ushered was Lynne Ramsay's 'Morvern Callar.' I started at 18. Best job in the world. Blockbusters, indie films, classic matinees.

Zawe Ashton

Relief is not a word that ever enters my mind, about anything.

Zawe Ashton

What a character wears and how it affects their mood and their movements has always been very important to me. A character's clothes, if they're truthful, can make audiences feel something.

Zawe Ashton

I've never lived in north or west London, so I'd like to come out of my comfort zone for a bit. But Stoke Newington is where my heart is, it's where I'm born and bred.

Zawe Ashton

I do think about moving out of London a lot, whether that's L.A., whether that's Margate with half of the other Hackneyites.

Zawe Ashton

I would like to have a baby.

Zawe Ashton

I love the visual medium of film and TV. I love the science of it, working with the sound and the lighting and every aspect.

Zawe Ashton

It has taken a long time for me to really dress as the artist that I am: I'm an indie girl, I like experimental, I like things to be subverted. Details are the fun part.

Zawe Ashton

When you're an actor, wealth is about choice.

Zawe Ashton

I'm Hackney born and bred and find it hard to call anywhere else home despite the extreme ongoing gentrification which gets me down.

Zawe Ashton

I think I've always felt that I want to do a very specific type of work and I've made informed decisions. You know, hopefully be part of a quiet movement or revolution.

Zawe Ashton

Episodic TV is notoriously brutal because just when you think 'I've got this, I know this character' you can pick up the script for series four and you die in the first episode - or your character suddenly transitions from a woman to a man.

Zawe Ashton

If people call my book an actor's memoir I will be very upset. I can't bear anything too literal, so it has elements of truth and elements of fiction sitting side by side.

Zawe Ashton

I had a meeting a while back with a big group of women - actors and producers and writers - who are all ethnic minorities and we just aired what we thought was happening and why, and someone said that, as a black or mixed race actress, you feel like you're renting space instead of carving out a career. But I'm just going to get on with it.

Zawe Ashton

Good writing shouldn't be wrapped in cellophane. It should be open to the elements and full of maggots and it should be left to grow and deepen and fester.

Zawe Ashton

My dad constantly tells me I should calm down, but I feel so sad when I see places I've known since I was a child closing. I burst out crying when a local pharmacy closed the other day; it's just going to become a shop that nobody has much of a need for. But I am trying to move with the times.

Zawe Ashton

I think there's still a feeling within society, entertainment aside, that women are less funny than men.

Zawe Ashton

As an actor you can always blame the director or writer for negative feedback. But as a writer, you're the reason why everyone's in the room.

Zawe Ashton

How long have we got to talk about women of colour and imposter syndrome. It's a real thing, and many people have it. It's, I think, a particular characteristic of the overachiever. Because you're bottomless, you never think what you've achieved is enough.

Zawe Ashton

What sometimes annoys me about the arts is increasingly that we have to put real people on screen or stage.

Zawe Ashton

Some people shun the idea of role models but I think it's one of the most important things people have in life - role models, to look up to.

Zawe Ashton

It's wonderful that newer brands such as Fenty are making clear statements about being for all skin tones.

Zawe Ashton