He his big break as a police officer on The Bill but now the actor is taking on the role of an SAS officer. Here, the 37-year-old talks about messing around on the soap, wanting to be Jimmy Stewart and being on stage with during his infamous Brits performance…
Hello – are you familiar with Metro’s 60 Seconds?
Of course I know ! Come on! I may be feeling the cold today in the UK because I’ve become soft living in LA for 13 years but ’s where my heart is. My family’s here. I was on the London Underground today and I got to see my face on the posters for my new film, Dead Shot. I’ve always loved that! I’ve had my face on the side of a bus a couple of times, too. It’s really nice.
Dead Shot is set during the Troubles. Tell us more…
It’s an action-based noir-style thriller about two men who are set on a path of vengeance. To me, it’s British film at its best. We do those intense dramas that keep you on the edge of your seat without all the flair of Hollywood. It’s great to get my hands back into something really gritty.
You play soldier turned copper Sergeant Tempest. Did it take you back any of your early roles?
Well, I was PC Lewis Hardy in The Bill and he was a 2000s kid, and Tempest is a man of the ’80s – a black British man of Caribbean descent. A man without a father and a man without a country. I wanted to explore the idea of vacancy: of someone who doesn’t quite know who they are and where they belong. But, ah, when you say The Bill, it brings back such a fun time in my life.
You still miss The Bill?
When you’re doing The Bill, you’re dreaming of the big stuff that you’ll do next. You don’t realise that, actually, it’ll be some of the best times you’ll ever have in the business. They used to get really annoyed with me because I’d run so fast, trying to emulate’s run in Mission: Impossible.
Now I get to do these big Hollywood action films and high-level British projects, and yet when people remember me from The Bill and say, ‘You probably don’t want to talk about that because you’ve moved on’, I say, ‘You’re wrong’. I still love The Bill!
You went to private school? Are you secretly quite posh?
What do you think? Does my accent sound posh?
Hard to tell – you’re an actor!
I went to what I would deem ‘a poor private school’ called the Barbara Speake Stage School. It’s where working-class people who scraped together their pennies sent their kids if they could. It’s an interesting thing about class – I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I think I come from a working-middle class with middle-class aspirations.
Were you a showbiz kid?
When I was six, I told my father I wanted to be an actor. My image of acting was in Home Alone having a right old knees-up. Then he became Richie Rich, and I was like, ‘Yo, I wanna be rich too!’
As I got older I wanted to be an actor like Jimmy Stewart and I got into ’40s movies like The Philadelphia Story; and Mickey Rooney because my mom’s a big cinephile. I’m one of eight siblings, so we watched movies together a lot.
Is it true that, aged ten, you were on stage with Michael Jackson at the Brits when Jarvis Cocker invaded it?
Yeah! If you go on YouTube you can see me – I’ve got little turban on and I’m standing next to Michael at the end. There were hundreds and hundreds of people auditioning for this role. And I was like, ‘God, if you give me this, I’ll never ask for anything again’. I lied!
When we were brought in to do a rehearsal, we were told: ‘Nobody can talk to Michael – anybody who talks to Michael will be out of here.’ All of a sudden the door opens and there’s this little guy, all in white and surrounded by bodyguards who are like 7ft 3in.
He gets on stage and I’m standing right next to him. And he goes, ‘Hey, why is everybody so quiet?’ And I’m frozen, not saying anything, and he goes: ‘Hey, my name is Michael’ and I was like, ‘I’m Aml and I know your name!’ People cried after came on stage and I remember trying to pull up a little tear and go, ‘Yeah, it’s ruined my night’. But it didn’t ruin it – it was a great night.
What do you miss most about the UK, aside from friends and family?
It used to be Guinness punch. But I need something else now that I don’t drink it anymore.
Is that because you’re now a clean, serene Los Angeles star?
No, I’m just a bit lactose-intolerant now, so it makes me fart! So I can’t have a normal latte – I’ve got an oat milk latte. But I’m not going all stupidly LA, right? I’m keeping it real.
If you had a motto tattooed on your arm, would it be?
Logic is the archenemy of magic.
Dead Shot is out now on Sky Cinema
Kae Tempest couldn’t hold down the fact they were non-binary anymore
